Still waters run deep my dear

A friend of mine and I were chatting about the tension between wanting and being happy, and my tongue stumbled upon the sentence - happiness is not found by doing something in order to be happy, but in being happy doing something. I realise this marked a culmination of a 12 year reflection on happiness, which can be found here: 1 2 3

It's surreal to realise that is the fabric of reality - the things you realise come full circle in the never-ending cycles of being.

Happiness is not found by doing something in order to be happy, but in being happy doing something. But doing what? Whilst there is happiness in simply being in the moment, there is more to happiness and joy - fundamentally, it comes from connectedness and being of value to others. A sense of usefulness and purpose.

Sometimes that purpose seems to come the pursuit of something; a place of wanting. Perfection, for example (arguably a human construct that does not really exist, but don't get me started on that). For me at least, being drawn to all-consuming pursuits like dance or medicine perhaps stems from an unfulfilled sense of human connection. In a way, it is a form of escape from that sadness - that sense of disconnection or isolation. But no matter how good you are, it never feels good enough, or like you've worked hard enough. The very escape and reward becomes a kind of punishment as you feel inadequacy - no matter how hard you try, it is never good enough for you, and you realise that you haven't actually resolved the underlying sense of disconnection, but that it has come out as inadequacy of another sort.

The pursuit of a relationship as a means to that end doesn't work either. Whilst a seemingly straightforward solution to the problem of human disconnect, this pursuit is actually damaging to the relationship in question if the entirety of the weight of your need for connection now rests on a single person. It generally ends up in neuroticism like 'Oh my God, why hasn't s/he texted back when it says s/he is 'online' or has 'read' the text', and a sense of disappointment when you realise that the relationship or person has not lived up to your expectation of what connectedness should be. Relationships are not a solution, or a 'magic bullet' cure to loneliness. If you think they are, then in the words of Sia, all your bullets ricochet. To love isn't about fulfilling your own need.

Happiness cannot be pursued. In a related vein of philosophical musings, you can't always get what you want, and getting what you think you want is often an exercise in realising that what you think you want isn't actually what you are really lacking. To paraphrase the words of Anna Pavlova, happiness cannot be chased, but like a butterfly, will come to rest gently on your shoulder.

There is happiness and satisfaction in being fully present in the moment that you are in, not being distracted from it by the past, or the future, or your own wants and desires. Whilst for some people that amounts to the New Age mindfulness of simply being, meditation and the like, for me it finds its best absolution in connection and belief in God. The belief that He loves us, and that He has made it this way, and is working in our lives. That the situations we are in, however they look to our human eyes, have value. Weak or strong, rich or poor. The sick inspire us with their fighting spirit, and the well take joy in caring for those in need. For it is through our individual circumstances that we are uniquely positioned to connect to others, and to mean something to other people. There can be many dancers, or waitresses, or admin officers. But no one else is truly in the same position, and no one else can replace us. It is out of this that we find purpose. And it is through the ongoing fulfilment of that purpose that joy arises. Joy is that sense of purpose that is fulfilled by an other-person centeredness in human connection. Joy looks outwards and runs deeper than a feeling of happiness.

Love, happiness, joy. All inextricably intertwined and culminating in moments of bliss, through a very good conversation with a friend.

Life's sine qua non

Not infrequently, I come across a spark of something almost magical. Call it a flash of numinosity, or a sparkle of illumination, or even perhaps sheer aesthetic - it comes in the hearing of a pure voice, or sighting of a beautiful metatarsal arch. It comes in gaining insight into the mind of a genius, or observing the fluid grace with which certain people seem to prepossess.

All this sounds like a very sensorial experience, but I do know that when it happens to me, I cannot pinpoint exactly what senses or cognition I am using to apprehend the situation. What I do know though, is that it speaks to my soul in some inexpressible way. It makes me feel that there must be such a thing as beauty and truth in the world to be able to experience something like this. To feel so relaxed by the stimulation, to feel so excited by the sense of coherence and harmony that these experiences illicit. A thrill, I suppose, that is something akin to love.

Today I experienced such a moment listening to a lecture. The lecturer, a retired professor of anatomy and histology, left me feeling as though I didn't want him to stop. I just wanted to keep listening to him impart knowledge in his perfectly-formed, andante sentences. I was left with the desire to see more of the elegant way he saw biology, for he possessed the very clarity and alacrity I first felt when I started to fall in love with the amazing interconnectedness (and so simplicity) of Nature's way.

I've felt so strongly this way a few times before - famous people like Audrey Hepburn, Sylvie Guillem, Uliana Lopatkina, Beethoven, Richard Feynman, Anthony Grayling come to mind. But even day-to-day people have their sparkle, their je ne sais quoi that I find gives me hope of heaven.

Balanced perfection

As a child, beauty is simple, our ideals are simple. We find the lifelike, vividly detailed Da Vinci more appealing than surrealist Dali. We find the things that are pleasing to the eye beautiful. We see perfection as an ideal like getting a 100% on a test, or being eloquent, intelligent, graceful.

Now I realise that perfection isn't quite as simple as all that. Something that's too perfect actually loses some of its beauty, some of its perfection. Its flawlessness is an imperfection, and it makes it less interesting, less appealing. It's like the way master potters sometimes purposefully include flaws in their work. They could make perfect pots, the ideal pot, easily, yet they choose not to, because they see that perfection is also about the acknowledgement of flaws. In the same way, I realise that as much as striving to live up to the ideals of perfection, being perfect is also about the acknowledgement and acceptance of what is not perfect.

Actually, perfection is like dance. I once said that the most important aspect of ballet is balance. It's true for perfection. And balance doesn't mean taking the middle road, but allowing a dynamic equilibrium to occur as a result of the constant battle between the two extremes, striving for perfection, and your own imperfections.