Cloud 9

I don't know how long it's been since I've felt this happy, but it has been a while. I guess this is the end of the year, and the end of my trial period at University, and it has come full circle. Some things are resolving themselves, some things are untangling. I spent today floating in happiness, just feeling good about everything, at the same time fending off people in their desperate attempts to throw me off but I am too happy to let people try and destroy this. It has stuck in my mind what Carlos said this morning before I went to bed, "You must never feel guilty about being happy."

And he's completely right. Now I think that's an absolute global statement. And it's going to let me rant about human nature for a few lines.

I discovered for myself very early in life that every single action taken by human beings is for self benefit. I know that's going to rattle some cages, but I think that it is fundamentally true, even in the cases of seeming total selflessness. But how? you cry, from cyberspace, and amazingly, I hear you. Well, it's because of someone's sense of moral duty, and that's purely subjective from person to person. In an extreme case of a soldier giving his life by jumping on a grenade, that is still not selfless because of his combined sense of duty and morality making him feel better by dying than by living having betrayed his friends and letting them die. It's a difficult idea, but it's one that I think can explain everything. Depending on the moral sense of a person, that defines how selfless they are, because their selflessness leads to their happiness, and I think humans are driven by happiness. Or at least the presumed pursuit of happiness.

Anyway, not that's it's particularly relevant, but it's just a little basing for what I'm about to say on what Carlos said.

Feeling guilty for being happy is not something that is natural, it's not the way someone should feel, nor is it how I want to ever feel. I am happy, and I should relish that, I should cherish it, because happiness is the most important thing about life. When someone dies, they reflect on whether they were happy, and not what they achieved. Someone could have built an empire from scratch, but if he was an unhappy man, what good does it do?

It's like the Johnny Cash song, A Satisfied Mind. Money doesn't buy happiness. It can make you happy, but the richest people are those who can be happy for nothing.

And today, I have felt so rich. I have been in heaven. I have just had the best feeling, and I would never sacrifice it, I will not feel guilty about it. I am now going to collapse asleep, because being happy takes it out of you.