{"id":149,"date":"2011-02-28T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T20:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/?p=149"},"modified":"2015-07-20T00:42:55","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T00:42:55","slug":"an-advocate-for-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/?p=149","title":{"rendered":"AN ADVOCATE FOR HAPPINESS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

By Lida Prypchan<\/b><\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of conviction,\u201d replied Jorge Luis astutely. \u201cHappiness is a matter of conviction,\u201d repeated this young man who, though he constantly sought out pleasant moments, never tried to escape pain but accepted it as the most natural thing in the world. Jose Francisco, his classmate, claimed to be calm and resigned, but inside he was a repository of poorly concealed painful experiences. He listened to his friend Jorge attentively, but when he heard these words, he revealed his true thoughts to him for the first time in two years. \u201cI appreciate what you\u2019re saying. Your position seems really intelligent, but I find it particularly impossible to account for things that way. I don\u2019t know whether my melancholy is hereditary. My father thinks it probably is and noticed that I always used to play alone when I was a child. He says painful experiences were etched into my brain very easily and that I was a potential depressive all my life. I remained one, too, with the ideas my father instilled in my mind. To make matters worse I always used to read psychological novels by authors like Kafka, Hermann Hesse, Sartre and Dostoievski, whose works gave me a great sense of companionship and relief from my daily pain. Ever since then I\u2019ve told myself that I\u2019m an existentialist, the sort of person who loves that fatal reality that Schopenhauer talks about, an atheist who wants to believe in God, so as not to feel so abandoned in this world where no one wants to surrender himself completely to anyone else. I have to admit that I\u2019ve thought of suicide several times and even mentioned it to my mother, who\u2019s quite understanding. She comforted me and cried alongside me, but she told my father, who said I shouldn\u2019t go through with it because it would cause a social scandal and his reputation as an eminent lawyer would be shredded in seconds \u2013 but he didn\u2019t tell me he wanted to help me pull through my crisis. I laughed at the way he said it, because he\u2019s not to blame, he\u2019s simply allowed himself to get swallowed up in the jungle of society, which is so plagued by hypocrisy and corrupt self-interests.\u201d<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>Jorge Luis interrupted him to say, \u201cI understand your feelings perfectly\u2026your experience with bitterness and pain. You\u2019ve become inured to it, and chronically depressed because you\u2019re so sensitive. At the same time, your pain has made you harsh and a little indifferent, at least, that\u2019s how you\u2019ve seemed to me until now. It\u2019s been a mistake to live in the past, Jose Francisco, isolating yourself and concentrating on the distressing things, just to come to the bitter conclusion that no one understands you and that fate has punished you harshly. Life is like the theater, Jose. Once destiny has done its job on us, it lets us improve our lot on our own and decide for ourselves what role we\u2019re going to play (etc., text illegible here) and you were just left with the personality you learned when you were a child: that of the martyr. You didn\u2019t play any other part because you were wrapped up in that sorry role and your pessimism has left you without hope of seeing that there are other better personalities.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>If we behave like old fogies, don\u2019t you see, we\u2019re going to feel, think and act like old fogies. If we refuse to act a certain role and learn to behave accordingly, we\u2019ll be able to avoid acquiring that personality. Don\u2019t think I\u2019m happy every single moment of the day. When I talk about happiness, I don\u2019t mean the everyday concept of happiness, which is to have a brilliant stroke of luck or constant pleasure. For me, happiness is making the most of the present, forgetting the past and having no concerns about the future. I\u2019ve accepted like with all its beauty and all its ugliness, its betrayals and contradictions, and its occasional unfairness. I\u2019ve accepted life and the beauty it has to offer, but at the same time I\u2019m aware of the pain it can also mete out. For me, happiness is in being able to bring my dream to like: to be a philosopher, unconcerned with material wealth, who exists for his ideas and beliefs, who lives for and is in love with just one woman. Whether I achieve this or not, only time and fate will tell. But let me tell you something important \u2013 since I\u2019m convinced that I am going to achieve this, I\u2019m not about to depress myself with pessimistic or self-defeating thoughts. You\u2019re wondering at my words and looking at me as if I\u2019m a freak. You\u2019re wrong. I\u2019ve had to go through a lot to convince myself of this. I\u2019m reserved and don\u2019t like talking about such intimate matters as I\u2019m discussing with you today. I\u2019m a man who has let himself be carried away by base passions, particularly bitterness and vengeance. Not that I\u2019ve often acted out of vengeance, but I have been consumed with bitterness \u2013 that is, until the day I decided to fight it because of all the damage it had inflicted on me. Don\u2019t think it was easy, I needed many years to convince myself of it. I can\u2019t say I don\u2019t sometimes feel bitter, but it\u2019s not like it used to be, a sick fury that consumed my dream. I\u2019ve learned to be indifferent. When someone hurts me or takes advantage of my generosity, I tell myself he\u2019s a poor fool who doesn\u2019t appreciate the friendship he\u2019s lost and doesn\u2019t realize how much I could teach him. Before, I\u2019d be eaten up by the thought that he considered me the fool, but now it\u2019s of no concern to me \u2013 I even prefer it that way.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>He rose from his seat and went into the studio with two glasses of wine, saying to Jose Francisco, \u201cNow, my dear friend, it\u2019s time to make a toast. Let\u2019s drink to the new role you\u2019re going to play in the theater of life \u2013 you are going to become an Advocate for Happiness!\u201d Overcome by emotion, they raised their glasses\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lida Prypchan \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of conviction,\u201d replied Jorge Luis astutely. \u201cHappiness is a matter of conviction,\u201d repeated this young man who, though he constantly sought out pleasant moments, never tried to escape pain but accepted it as the most natural thing in the world. Jose Francisco, his classmate, claimed to be calm and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","nodate","item-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296,"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}