Happiness is a curious thing. It rushes at you in overwhelming waves, then rushes away again. It is so full yet fleeting that one is left with merely the air in one's lungs, and wondering if anything was actually real or there at all.
I've gotten older. I don't crave happiness. I don't need happiness to be happy. Doesn't that make no sense at all? But that is what time and wisdom bring - the ability to see past this world's shellacking into one's own truth. I don't know yet what happiness really is or even what it's worth, but I can now sense that it exists in the absence of emotion. It does not cling or desire. It is not reaching for anything more than it already is.
And though I'm still meditating on what truth and happiness might actually be, I have realized one of its manifestations. For the first time, I can observe and appreciate the accomplishments of others with no impact to my own esteem. I can admire beauty and success without covet or envy. It's such a small thing, really, and yet a huge one. To achieve real objectivity. To achieve one's own worth without comparison to others. To know you are so right and whole that there is nothing left to crave.
On the day you realize there is nothing left for you to want, that is the ultimate rush. It is astounding and pure. That realization gives you the freedom to appreciate the beauty in this world without a need to claim it for yourself. You and every good thing - now unfettered.
This might not be happiness, but perhaps a step closer to actualization. Like everyone, I experience melancholy, anger, hurt - but these are passing emotions that I need not fear nor cling to. These emotions, I can smile on them and let them go. They help shape the landscape, but they are not the earth.
I do not compare. I already have everything I need. Whatever else happens around me, I remain the earth and the sky. I am transient and eternal.
"Pursuing you in your transitions,
In other Motes —
Of other Myths
Your requisition be.
The Prism never held the Hues,
It only heard them play —
~Emily Dickinson
