Party Tricks

My favourite time to take someone’s photo has always been this moment. It’s right after I crack a joke, and right before they pull their face back together. It's my party trick, and it’s reality.

I went to a seminar today on happiness and being happy. Being happy without burning out, sustainable happiness, really real happy. The keynote spoke about whether or not we could define what being happy really is, and why we chase it so furiously. I sat there and realised I chase every day, and I fumble to describe what it is I’m chasing after. What happy am I happy-chasing? A carrot.

In my purest form I’m a list maker, and a finished to-do list is my carrot. In reverie we throw the proverbial carrot and then run to pick it up. Our happy comes from the hope of being happy; the notion that the carrot is probably getting closer, but always running to the next root vegetable means there is no end. The carrot is tied to a string to a stick to your head.

Chasing the carrot is living for the moment after the joke where you pull your face back together, and it’s ignoring what’s dangling from a string in front of your eyes that you can fall in love and laugh with what you have.

Well fuck that. Cut the string and eat the carrot. Be happy now.