The little happiness

People complain. It rains all the time. It is cold. It has already started snowing. The sweetness of autumn was, as if it were a surprise, only a vein of promise. The delicate life has gone to get dressed for the winter or rather, it has gone to take refuge in the south, among others among the Brazilians who, for their part, do not really know winter and who think that 10°C is death.

I’m not afraid of the cold and I’m a little distracted anyway. Also, as we can never repeat often enough, the hazards of a grey sky are very little in the face of the disastrous state of the world. Ditto for my finances and my funny relationships.

My eyes stopped at a book about happiness. The author has been dragging his feet for about ten years now. Our brains, set to perceive danger, are refractory to happiness and must be softened, as Buddhists do, that every bit of joy must be used to bring forth our overly nervous synapses.

Even today, a Brazilian friend told me on Facebook that he felt small in the face of the great injustice around him but that he was trying, with his modest means, to make his entourage happy. He’s handsome, this Brazilian, a soldier, who reads C.S. Lewis.

Beauty is indeed everywhere, tenacious as a hope. I would be dishonest not to recognize it. I’m not saying I’m happy, I’m not saying I’ve found happiness. That would be such a big lie. I am not really unhappy either, even though I am struggling with a deep sense of loneliness.

I try to be good, to let go, to live the autumns, the winters, the springs, and the summers. I no longer know what my days will be like, so it results in a certain liberation. I should have noticed it long before, but it is never too late since time is just another circus in the maelstrom of reality.

So, well, it rains all the time and it’s cold. I look forward to the blue skies of winter.