Let's start with a tale Snopes says is an urban legend:
Lunching with English friends at the time of her husband's retirement, Madame de Gaulle was asked what she was looking forward to in the years ahead. "A penis," she replied without hesitation. The embarrassed silence that followed was finally broken by the former president. "My dear," he murmured, "I think the English don't pronounce the word quite like that. It's 'appiness.'"
We all know one of them, one of those annoyingly superior people who know best and act as if the world is their oyster. I'm not talking about becoming quite one of them, but about the attitude. They're ok and always will be. In the UK they tend to shop in Waitrose.
We have many of them in the government and nobody else's views impinge on them in any way.
What if we take the attitude and rebel by being happy? In a stressful, conflicted world it would be natural to be depressed and stressed beyond belief. I'm also not talking about minimising any of the shit that's going on in the world.
I'm talking about doing things that make us happy as a rebellion against the nonsense. An act of self care in the face of everything, if you like. A way of changing the script slightly.
Because when you make small changes they tend to have knock on effects elsewhere, like all magical acts.
It is also my firm conviction that the world is increasingly dividing into two factions. In true Hound fashion I call the factions the people who are cunts, and the ones who aren't cunts. The cunts want everyone except themselves to be miserable, and the non-cunts want everyone to be happy. This means that being happy, making sure you can be happy by doing things which make you happy, is actually an act of rebellion against the people who want everyone else to be miserable.
And this isn't just a positive behaviour. It is actually witchcraft. If you think about the bit in the Gospel of the Witches about the feast, it says, you will dance, sing, feast, make music and love, all in my praise... and this will continue until every last one of the oppressors is dead.
That sounds very much like the sort of thing I'm getting at. Like sticking your fingers up. And strangely enough I have a soundtrack for this!
Finally if you'd like something quieter I've just recently discovered there are people (all men, apparently) who are made happy by racing washing machines! AND they even get people in the comments requesting particular cycles. 😂
There is perception that altruism means caring about the well-being of others, "at one's own expense." but I find this not to be true or perhaps another word is needed that is between selfish and selfless. they are both fractions without wholeness. I genuine care about other people and nothing is taken from me, the exchange is a mutual benefit. There was a recent Enviromental article I read, (I read a lot, daily) that having reviewed Charles Darwin's theories now believe that when he spoke of "survival of the fittest." He didn't me physical virility as it has often assumed, but to "fit in" to one's ecological landscape as part of a larger puzzle.
ReplyDeleteWhen business undermine their employees moral or do massive layoffs to save money and raise shareholder prices, they seem to forget that their employees are also customers. When multiple influential businesses do this, well, "Hello, Recession!" It doesn't take a degree in Economics!
I live in the backyard of The Boeing Company. There's something seriously wrong when your own employees are afraid to fly on your planes. It wasn't always like this. There used to be a high sense of pride to work at the company and to be from the region where the company was founded, but now we treat it like the uncle who remarried and became a complete asshole to all his siblings. I wish for founder William E. Boeing to haunt the current CEO David L. Calhoun. Mr. Boeing, you would be livid to see what they have done to your legacy and convictions!
Exactly! All of this! One of the most positive things at the moment is that increasingly people are thinking things don't have to be the way they are, and the major Achilles heel of capitalism, that it has to allow competition, is people's way in to do something different.... thus adapting in the way Darwin talks about!
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