Sorry I couldn't be there, I was tied to a rocking chair
I was beat down to a pulp rocking back and forth somewhere
If you knew, if you saw, you'd have said it was the final straw
That my life was bound and tethered on a porch by the shore...
I know that it's always something
I'm just working with what I've been given
It's not my fault, I'm happy
Don't call me crazy, I'm happy
-Michael Angelakos, It’s Not My Fault I’m Happy 2012
Michael Angelakos, the lead singer and lyricist of Passion Pit is bipolar like me. Truly the euphoric, boundless feelings that come with mania have begun to take a sour note in my heart. “Don’t call me crazy, I’m happy.” “It’s not my fault.” “I’m just working with what I’ve been given.” Certainly, there is a desperation to feel happy. I know it well. There is no greater relief than when it comes, and as I have said before it is nothing less than capricious and seemingly cruel in its mark. “My life is bound and tethered on a porch by the shore somewhere.” Just as relieving and enlivening as euphoria can be, so debilitating can dysphoria be. Happiness itself is a real motivational entity, but it is not all there is to life.
Happiness is the end goal of countless philosophies. Often it is considered the hallmark of goodness and the reward of the righteous -- the sticky end to moral goals. Yesterday I was discussing the psychology of my lovely sister-in-law Amanda (my husband’s sister) with my husband, Micheal. She is a very effulgent person who strongly follows her feelings to very rewarding ends. If something feels icky -- then it must be true that it is icky. If something feels good then that must be true that it is good. To her, happiness is truth, and sadness is truth-- absolutely. In this paradigm, her feelings rarely fail her and she has a fairly cogent existence. Truthfully, I think this should be the way of most of humanity.
I expressed a small amount of light-hearted jealousy in this matter. Dysphoria had flaired (as it inevitably does in bipolar illness), and I contemplated out loud the irony that I am one who once lived such an existence--that of trusting my feelings absolutely. Of course, being bi-polar, I cannot do that. I simply no longer have the luxury of trusting my feelings, for my feelings of dysphoria and euphoria are more often little better than lies that nevertheless rule my reality. Often, because of this, I have contemplated the value of happiness and weighed it against truth.
I had spent the day on Easter in inexplicable beauty. I woke late to mirthful children finding their baskets. I made out with my handsome husband who made me breakfast. He adores me and I adore him. We attended the color festival where I received free kisses, blessed people's faces as I smeared them with color, and told strangers they were beautiful. I danced to ridiculous hippie music, met with friends and watched our children run around together. Then, I drove to my in-law’s house where I was offered food, acceptance and good stories. I came home, took a nap, woke late in the night and ate at Village Inn where we drank delightful black coffee and planned our trip abroad. My daughter fell asleep on my husband’s lap while my other one told me all about the book she wants to write. The day was blissful in every way, but unlike others, I was incapable of feeling any joy. I did however feel love, gratitude, reason and appreciation of my circumstances. Later I will be able to reflect upon the day in retrospect and feel joy about it.
My niece, Mieka, who is 10 (Amanda’’s daughter) was very depressed yesterday at having to give away a kitten. It was apparently her favorite kitten of the second litter of kittens to be born to her cat in the last year. She had been moping. Amanda had been trying to cheer her up. Amanda does not like to be sad and cannot handle sadness in her children. I consider this to be a virtue in Amanda --especially considering her worldview. To Amanda, children should be kept from pain and disappointment as long as possible, and any pain or disappointment they feel is deeply troubling to her.
After an hour of watching Mieka mope, and struggling myself with dysphoria (though mine was the imaginary machination of my capricious illness and not the loss of a beloved kitten) I asked my niece, “Do you know about the problem with homelessness that faces most kitties and puppies?” Short of telling her what happened to the kittens and puppies who were not fortunate enough to find a home, I talked with her about how fortunate this particular kitten was to have found the home that it did and to have the great love of a little girl like her. Indeed, the ironic twist of her sorrow was that it was the result of her love. If she did not love the kitten so much, then she would not feel so distressed at being separated from it. “Your feeling of sadness is a completely normal reaction. It would be abnormal to feel anything but sad in this moment. However, this is the best case scenario for this kitten in the entire world. You can feel happy that it was fortunate enough to find a good home where they will care for it and love it and sad that it is no longer with you at the same time.”
This dualism of feeling is one reason I eschew philosophical conundrums and thought experiments like “the trolley problem” or Sophie’s choice. Not only are these situational thought experiments unrealistic situations to the average human experience, but they mitigate the full range of emotions and complexities we are capable of experiencing. While I was unable of experiencing joy on that day of bliss, that was not the only purpose of life. When faced with real life and real death in extreme (such as in the trolley problem), trauma and logic are completely incongruent -- resulting in a fractured mind to any previously sane person. No actual morality can be deduced, and thus no actual reduction of happiness can be amounted in the utilitarian fortress of logic and empiricism. Yet, in all instances and in all experiences more than one emotion can be felt, more than one virtue accounted for, enveloping a more moralistically cogent experience than the commonly accepted utilitarian focus on happiness.
