or, "my new mantra."
yes, it was a dark and stormy morning as i browsed the zen section at the bookstore, a sure sign of depression. whenever i look for answers i know i'm not asking the right questions.
i drifted here and there on the sea of cliches and triteness, most of it like the stuff you find attached to those terrible yogi teabags: love, others, love yourself, love the plants. despair has a way of multiplying itself. the sages of the ages seem to feel you have to be bored to death until you come alive.
ah, let me look at this: NINETY-NINE MILLION WAS TO BE HAPPY. why not? aren't we all pursuing happiness, like rabbits running through the sagebrush? oh, god, the corn again. all the pablum you've had off cereal boxes for ninety-nine years. be good to others and they'll be good to you. why has that never worked? some live to give, some live to take, and the rest merely make it out of bed.
okay, i can see i'm getting nowhere. about to abandon truth for humor, drifting away from the profound needs of my soul into a parody of it, i strike pay-dirt. something i'd never thought about jumps at me from the pallid page. you do not need a reason to be happy. what, you mean i don't need another trip to greece, my youth back, a new computer? how can that be? mustn't we have reasons for everything?
stunned, i felt very strange. a feeling i'd long forgotten and seldom experienced came over me. am i having a stroke? is my left brain fading so i can experience bliss? then, it hit me. happiness, my devil in heaven, that bizarre and unexpected state came over me. and for a moment i couldn't condemn all the decayed readers around me. they looked so beautiful!
nonsense, nonsense! it can't be that easy. returning to my double-espresso, the true entry into nirvana, i sat down and couldn't touch the cup. i didn't want to lose my delusion. and for the rest of the day, picking up mail, going to the bank, i kept telling myself whenever dark thoughts descended: you don't need a reason to be happy. this might not work for everyone, but even as i rolled out of bed feeling awful from too much boozing and browsing last night, i revived my spirits, whispering, you don't need a reason to be happy.
new construction pics: www.pbase.com/wwp/site2 and
