The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA
This was the title of an old upbeat song by Donna Fargo. It kind of stuck in my mind with it's "zippy doo da, zippidy A, I'm the happiest girl in the whole USA". There have been moments in my life when I felt I was the happiest guy in the whole USA. I guess most have had those moments. You get a good exam score, you win a race, your team wins a sandlot ball game of some sort, you buy a new car, you purchase a new home, you find true love, you attend a concert that enthralls your senses, you get a scholarship, you win a battle at work, and on it goes with different strokes of happiness for different folks.
I think only a fool would attempt to define happiness. It is more like a personal invention at a personal moment in time. None of these moments last. What goes up must come down. Damn Mother Nature. The original Manager of my condo used to refer to me as the happiest owner in the building. More than one owner has commented that I never seem to be upset about anything. Perhaps they confuse such absence with 'why bother'? I was never a good dancer. Not on the dance floor and not dancing to the tune of others in the rest of life either. But the terminational years are different. I have learned to dance. I call it the 'Get Out of the Way Waltz'---a "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick' sort of reflexive reaction to contests, confrontations, challenges of any sort. With a little savvy you can see it coming and just when they reach out to put the squeeze on you----poof, you are gone leaving them to wrap their arms around themselves. I consider this the cornerstone of contentment in the terminational years. Like the Charmin toilet paper ad--- please don't squeeze RSJ. It works well---I don't get squeezed, and you can bet the squeezer is not going to squeeze themselves too hard. Everybody wins.
The high strung happiness moments of yesteryear are never lost and become the cornerstone of pleasant memories. Without past pleasant memories I don't know how one generates contentment in their terminational years. When you feel lucky and fortunate about your past it is not hard to find contentment in your terminational years. The bad moments of time fade and the good moments sustain a positive mental state. Really now, what should a survivor with good memories complain about? With the passage of time everything changes---your own priorities, your interests. your energy level, your ambitions, your political or religious inclinations, your expectations, your tolerance, oh just about everything. The days of striving to be a winner, to best anyone about anything, either are gone or the terminational years will be endless hell to pay. When I wander hither and thither these days like some sort of stray dog nosing around, I see the frenzied harried looks of the productive years crowd seeking those momentary points of happiness and I feel like a retired winner. If I wanted to, I could not---definitely not--- re-engage myself in that mode.
When the manager would tell me how cheerful I always am and unlike others, never come by to complain----well, I smiled and felt a bit guilty because some of those who bothered her, bothered her because I know which owners, given a nudge, will grab the ball and run with it. I can then head out for a peaceful walk and think of all this stuff I write about, which seems to fill any need I have to accomplish something. To think you understand things about the world you exist in can be the sustenance of your satisfaction in life. Of course I will be dead no longer in the long run anymore but the short run now, so all this perceived understanding about all sorts of matters is a farce, but the kind of farce which sustains me at this stage in my life. If some others want to view me as the happiest owner in the building so be it. I guess it is better than being known as the biggest grouch in the building. No one, who remotely thinks they understand the realities of our world, can be labeled the happiest person around. You look around, and if you remove the blinders, layers of them put in place over the years, you see the pain, the suffering, the injustices crushing an ever increasing mass of humanity---pitiful lives of quiet desperation. You see it and you are helpless. And you begin to understand from where so many terrorists are coming. They are the ones who refuse to suffer in silence. They are coming, millions strong and ever growing, ever honing more efficient and destructive ways to attack all the perceived enablers of their fate. The days of the poor and destitute living off the land in peaceful little remote villages across the globe are gone. The environment can no longer sustain an overpopulated globe. The game is up now. Of course the God created process of evolution continues on, as it has for millions of years, and all those who think God is personally walking along side them with His/Her arm around them protecting them from the Natural processes of His evolutionary process---well, to me this seems hopelessly and selfishly illusionary. A real stretch. To believe God would put his arm around me personally and not some parent-less starving kid in a wretched refugee camp is a self serving preposterous absurdity.
Anyway, if some want to consider me the happiest owner in the building, so be it. But the reality is that I am just waltzing around, fine tuning my Get Out of the Way Waltz. That is, after all is said and done, kind of the best move for the aged. It is fine with me, I kind of enjoy being out of the way. It beats fussing a good deal of the time about this and that and whatever---being a nuisance, a burden, a pest, somebody's obligation, a frustrated control freak, some sort of dead weight for others to drag around. I prefer to go gently down the stream, on good terms with those who are kind to me, and the more gently I go the kinder people are. I am never really alone but surrounded by a good array of mentors, some alive but mostly dead, whose wisdom and example provide the sustenance for contentment. And no, contentment does not make anyone the happiest person in the whole USA. That is Terrell Owens when he scores a touchdown. Or a politician when they win an election, or me when I won a race, or someone in the middle of their best orgasm ever, or a kid learning he is getting a scholarship to college, or a worker getting a promotion, or a refugee getting a piece of bread, or Bush on a successful bombing spree. I always hate to see Bush smile. It seems to always mean some people have been slaughtered or some injustice to some group has been upheld, or assistance to those in need been blocked, or his own religious beliefs been made the law of the land, or the wealthy are getting another tax break, etc. He has certainly smiled a lot over the last 7 years. Bush cannot, by any measure, match Hitler, but at least Hitler had the decency not to smile.
