Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Happiness

Have I ever really had that “joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart”? I can’t say that I recall a time when I was ever overwhelmingly joyful not contingent on circumstances. And what I find most interesting is the mantra of the world in its “New Age” is to abandon materialism and embark in this hippy wave of anti-cleanliness and mental purification. It’s like we’re engaged in a hugely literal “surface warfare” against just skimming the froth on life. The spiritual side, the ooh-ahh ghost side of life, the flip side of the carpet is what people are trying to fill their hearts and minds and smoke detectors with incenses. But what I find hilariously hilarious about this journey of our world is that the happiness people once found in their “old life” of cultural consumerism is the same emotion of happiness people now find in their “new life” of nothing-but-the-dread-locks-in-my-hair kind of way of life. So what must change? Well, that’s what I’m trying to mine one pick after another. I think we’re missing something, and I say that with all seriousness. There must be something missing when our entire method of being has completely flip flopped, but we still see ourselves enjoying the same emotion. We are missing joy. A non-circumstantial happiness found neither in the Vogue-overloaded mind of a shopaholic or in the vegan, hemp-clothed mind of a New Ager. Joy comes from an Undefined Place or Person, however which-a-way you prefer. So the point, if there is one, that I’m seemingly trying to make is that addiction is addiction. And while happiness is mandated in a life of circumstances, addiction to a happiness divorced from joy is a life addicted to self.