Happy

Sometimes you hear something that sets you off thinking or reasoning or dreaming of an ordered, peaceful world and the same words heard an hour or a day later seem to signal something else entirely, something more like simple fear.

I heard a new song yesterday about happiness, about making the choice to be happy and yet the song was anything but that –it wasn’t a happy song at all, even though the beat was quick and the „happy“ word was repeated over and over. It was a song about the elusiveness of happiness and the singer’s life-long pursuit of the seemingly unattainable. Yet in the end, it was the song of a searcher, a person who had not and would not give up.

Later that day I heard the word again, this time in near desperation, a plea for happiness spoken by someone a great distance from it. As if searching for safe haven in an angry and impersonal world, the cry for „happy“ wasn’t a dream or wish for anything resembling joy, but more like a prayer for peace, a moment of rest , asylum – anything to stop events from unfolding as they inevitably seemed to be.

I hope they both find what they are searching for – I hope we all do.