Sid Vicious

(My apologies if this is horribly written. I don't have much time to devote to it today, but I felt that this was a topic that I needed to write on now or else I never would.)

Ernest Hemingway said "Happiness amongst intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

They've done all sorts of studies to prove or disprove this longstanding idea that intelligent people are more unhappy than stupid people.

The conclusion, generally, is the most brilliant of minds shrugging their shoulders. How do you quantify happiness? How can you be sure that anyone is being accurate or even truthful about how happy they are. On top of that, isn't studying happiness possibly the most depressing thing a person can do?

Love, for example, has a definition. To love something, in the American sense, is to want it. When you tell your boyfriend or your girlfriend or husband or wife that you love them, what you mean is, "I want you." It doesn't necessarily mean sexual wanting, but it most definitely means objectification. We lust for something or another...whether it's sex or companionship or a good laugh. Perhaps you'd like to yell at me at the top of your lungs, explaining that love is something different -- sacrificial, magical. And I envy you. Because ignorance IS bliss. And I suppose I'll stop myself from explaining in haunting detail why to love means to lust

every

single

time.

And there's this Christian notion that love is self-sacrifice. That Jesus did not want us as much as he wanted FOR us. And I do not believe that this has occurred one single time since. Not toward me and not from me. There is no magic in love. As much as Hollywood would like for me to believe that love is something fantastic -- made of equal parts sunshine, unicorns and Braveheart the CareBear...I know too much. I wondered, and I explored, and I have found that the world is not flat. I don't think I'm alone in this, I don't think my de-mystifying of love is anything novel...except to the stupid people of the world. I do think, however, that there is one mystery left -- Happiness.

And so we've got scientists scrambling as fast as they can to quantify happiness. To figure out it's root causes and understand why some are happier than others. Why do some people have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in their hearts, and some people join the Sex Pistols? I couldn't tell you (thank God.) Because if I could...I'd probably start pounding nails into the floor with my forehead.

----------------------------

I feel like it was elementary school when I first heard the phrase "knowledge is power."

I guess it could have been earlier.

And boy...we learn from a young age that being powerful is a fantastic idea.

It's not like your third grade teacher sits you down to watch Reading Rainbow, and that guy who plays Geordie LaForge says, "Remember kids, knowledge is power! And also, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely!"

My senior year of high school, I dated a girl who was a genius. She was gorgeous and fun and perhaps the most free person I've ever met. She also manipulated every single person around her. After we broke up, it occurred to me that I could not trust anyone smarter than me because chances were, they too were a manipulator. So far, it's proven true. People smart enough to understand the way people work are also smart enough to work people.

I keep going back to Perelandra lately, and C.S. Lewis's brilliant line about the root of all evil being the desire to have tomorrow what one had yesterday or the day before. What is intelligence more than the knowledge of how EXACTLY to get what one wants? What is the purpose of learning beyond becoming more able to get what you want AND KEEP IT (in some way or another).

My own personal theory is that absolute power does not corrupt absolutely. Power is a drug like no other. For gods, there is absolute power...and if you believe that a god exists, chances are you believe that He or She is not absolutely corrupted. Men, however, are incapable of absolute power -- but the closer we get, the more perilously we scramble for just a bit more.

And yet, the more unhappy it makes us.

The root of all evil, says C.S. Lewis -- is the desire to hoard. To keep what you do not need just in case you need it tomorrow, or to fear losing something you believe you cannot live without. Jesus said to observe the birds of the air -- they don't sow or reap or gather in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

I don't know about you, but I like to live slightly more comfortably than birds. I'm trying to rid myself of that, but it's not going so well.

If knowledge is power, and the quest for power is always a bad idea...then isn't the pursuit of knowledge a phenomenally bad idea?

My friend Canada says he doesn't like going to churches because "Why would I want to waste my time listening to some guy who is hell-bent on de-mystifying the only magical thing left in the world."

It's starting to get annoying how often you're right, you jerk.

------------------------

Apparently, there's no study that has PROVEN that smart people are more unhappy than stupid people, but I'm starting to get the impression it's true.

"Ignorance is bliss," they say. I don't really know who 'they' are in this case. So, I looked it up. Thomas Gray:

Thought would destroy their paradise.

No more; where ignorance is bliss,

'Tis folly to be wise.

where ignorance is bliss sounds an awful lot like Charlotte, North Carolina.

And if it's folly to be wise, does that mean it's stupid to go out and learn about the world I live in? I don't have the answer to that one. And, for Santa Clause's sake...if you know the answer to that one, please don't tell me.

I think I'll go cry now.

Either that or have a cigarette.

A cigarette seems like the stupider choice.