The Greeks have given us one of the most beautiful words of our language, the word “enthusiasm” — a God within. The grandeur of the acts of men are measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a God within.
Louis Pasteur
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I am happiest when I am working hard, pushing towards some defined goal, that I have somewhere In my sights. The attainability of said goal bears no relation to happiness in pushing towards it, it merely has to exist in my mind. I know for example that the creativity to write songs like Allan Holdsworth does, the harmonies, the chord structures and all are a loooooong ways off, but that doesn’t stop me from working towards the goal of becoming a better songwriter and a better musician.
I love when I really have to get down and dirty and root around and fight like hell for what I want. Which is why, in part, I love manual labor. I am not a very large person. Barely 5’10”, around 165 – 170 pounds, but I tell you I love just trying to push and out-muscle everyone. It’s why I love my job, it gives me more than ample opportunity to do just that. Moving furniture, lifting marble slabs, maneuvering large sculptures and the like is for me a blast. It has nothing really to do with the particular piece. I’m not in it for the sheer artistic brilliance of it, though it is a nice side benefit, truth be told.
Now I know that most people would call that crazy, or stupid, or silly, or just not care. But to a guy who spent many years working in an office where the hardest work ever done was not only not manual, but completely out of my personal control, and hating it like crazy to boot, it made the control and movement in physical space of all types of things, where I have a real sense of control of space and action and outcome a real pleasure. I think I am happier now, as a property handler (glorified bullshit title for a mover), than I ever was as a copy machine operator or supervisor.
I’d like more money to do it, because I am flat damn broke right now, but that is another issue entirely.
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Viddy of the day: Happiness is a warm gun.
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Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks
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Things I am happy about.
1 ) I love my wife and she loves me.
2 ) Even if it’s only a temp job, I have a job.
3 ) Football season has started, and Hockey is going to in a few weeks, and the world series is close at hand. Nothing says love like fall sports.
4 ) The GOP’s Pledge to America. A truly great piece of fiction and out only a few weeks before the election! Who’d’ve thunk it?
5 ) The economy is slowly getting better. Beats the only realistic alternative.
6 ) People have finally shut the hell up about the Burlington coat factory mosque.
7 ) I am working all weekend. Meaning no time off but I’ll get a fair bit of cash in pocket, which I REALLY REALLY need.
8 ) Fall will be here soon. And Christmas soon after. I love Christmas. Life is just better during Christmastime, even if you have nothing.
9 ) Stephen Colbert is going to testify on Capitol Hill tomorrow. If tomorrow wasn’t a payday, i’d take a day off just to watch.
10 ) I love my wife and she loves me. It’s so nice I have to list it twice.
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That’s it from here America, I’ll write to you again when I can. G’night!
Casus Belli 