It's Very Possible To Be Both Happy And Well-Informed

Reading by Tim Foley:

There’s a viral tweet going around that says it’s “hard to find the balance between educating yourself on current events and not making yourself so indescribably sad that you can’t properly function.”

It’s a relatable statement, but it’s based on an incorrect understanding.

The key isn’t finding a balance between blissful ignorance and painful awareness, it’s learning to find happiness in sources that don’t depend on the delusional belief that everything is fine.

It’s very possible to be both happy and well-informed. We live in an explosively beautiful universe, and getting to experience anything at all is amazing. The fact that our world is plagued by human butchery and degradation does not cancel out the majesty of a bird in the sky, or the ecstasy of the wind upon your skin.

It is true that we live in a civilization of unfathomable cruelty. It is true that our biosphere is being strangled while human and non-human beings are subjected to horrific abuses in a society which elevates the worst art, the worst values, and the worst people to the highest levels of prominence.

It is also true that getting to live even a single moment on this astonishing blue planet is a gift worthy of immense joy and gratitude.

These things are both fully true at the same time. They do not negate each other.

Don’t find your happiness in the belief that everything is okay, because everything is not okay. If you spend your life squirming around trying to avert your gaze from the truth and psychologically compartmentalizing away from reality, you will never know actual happiness.

Instead, find your happiness in that which cannot be corrupted by this fraudulent dystopia.

Your connections with your loved ones. That’s real and authentic.

The radiance of the natural world. That’s real and authentic.

The crackling aliveness of the senses. That’s real and authentic.

The boundless peace deep down at the heart of your being which reveals itself if you listen closely enough. That’s real and authentic.

These things can supply endless happiness, even as the world burns, and even as you weep at its burning. Because it is entirely possible to honor the grief and tragedy of this world while also delighting in its beauty.

You can weep for the dying oceans while marveling at the stars.

You can rage for Gaza while reveling in the earth beneath your bare feet.

You can open your heart to all the suffering and to all the wonder.

You can fall to your knees in both anguish and gratitude.

You can do these things because feelings move through you if you don’t cling to them. You feel them fully without resistance, you invite them in to have their say, and then you let them leave when they are done.

It usually doesn’t take long; a few minutes, maybe even seconds. Then you get up and go back to marveling at the miracle.

Feelings are meant to be felt. If you simply feel them all the way through when they come up instead of repressing them or trying to manage them, they move through fairly quickly without setting up a permanent residence in your chest.

But you’ve got to really let them have their say. You’ve got to give yourself fully over to them. This takes practice if you don’t know how to do it, and because of the way our culture conditions people it tends to be harder for men than for women. But it’s a skill like any other, and anyone can teach themselves how to do it.

Appreciating the beauty of this terrestrial experience likewise takes practice. Everything is crackling with beauty all the time, but we don’t notice it because our attention gets wrapped up in mental stories. Just make a conscious practice of noticing beauty at every opportunity, and your aperture for appreciating beauty will get wider and wider. You can learn to live your whole life in this way, from moment to moment.

If you can get the hang of these two skills — appreciating beauty and feeling your feelings all the way through — then there will be nothing stopping you from living a joyful and fulfilling life while also having an entirely truth-based relationship with reality.

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