It's been a long time since I equated happiness with success. I remember vaguely wanting my life to be "a success". I had no real notions of what would form success, but a more general hopefulness that I would know "success" when it came about, because it would make me happy.
I gradually learned this formula was self-defeating. One cannot set out to seek "happiness", because seeking happiness as such assures that it will elude one. One has to seek what one wants out of life instead, and then happiness appears.
Because I had this formulation back to front, I was very miserable for a several years, particularly in my early twenties, when life seemed to stagnate, and I waited for "happiness" to pull me from my dormant state.
Christmas after Christmas, this guest refused to simply arrive. My family had brought me up with Christian values, which suggested that life rewards you in its own time and in a "natural" way. There was nothing to do and nothing that could be pushed along. This ideology in itself was depressing enough
What was I doing wrong in seeking happiness? I had no maturity -- a fact I'd come to recognize, when it came to understanding my place in the world. I had no skills to analyse anything, so I didn't know where I ought to fit in. Being a migrant of several years had much to do with my experience of anomie. I had longings that seemed to be answered only by returning to an African environment.
All of this time, I never felt, "perhaps I'm falling through the cracks?" Instead, I just assumed that fate was tricking me by leaving me behind in unrewarding twilight zones. I was very angry and very sad about this, but I hadn't any words for either of these strong emotions. I had no means to conceptualize why things had ended up as they had. They just had. It was fate -- and fate had no explanation for it.
Gradually, I gained an education. But progress was slow. I had a lot of mental blanks to fill. Also, people were generally hostile when I told them I had come from Africa. I had no idea what this meant. I was trying to find some traction in life, and I had no notion that I had a controversial "identity", because of where I had come from. I was trying to find those old emotions -- the ones involving being "one" with the organic world around me. I also wanted the thrill of imminent danger as these were the sensations I had grown up with because of the war.
Now, my feelings had totally abandoned me, and I was looking for the sort of environment where we could rendezvous again. I couldn't find one. Everything was green and sealed over -- not the sort of environment I was seeking.
This distressed me beyond words.
My breakthrough eventually came through reading Nietzsche. Through his writing, I gained access to some of these older, familiar emotions. I used his ideas to structure new meanings. My life gained inner purpose for the first time since I'd left Zimbabwe, back in 1984.
My path to salvation has been slow. I've learned how much a person can adapt to very different circumstances, and when she should retire from the fight -- not in a spirit of resignation, but with respect for knowledge about where the boundary lines are that preserve the self.
I've found that pleasure is not too hard to find, especially if one awakens old robust states of mind. Sources of happiness appear.
I gradually learned this formula was self-defeating. One cannot set out to seek "happiness", because seeking happiness as such assures that it will elude one. One has to seek what one wants out of life instead, and then happiness appears.
Because I had this formulation back to front, I was very miserable for a several years, particularly in my early twenties, when life seemed to stagnate, and I waited for "happiness" to pull me from my dormant state.
Christmas after Christmas, this guest refused to simply arrive. My family had brought me up with Christian values, which suggested that life rewards you in its own time and in a "natural" way. There was nothing to do and nothing that could be pushed along. This ideology in itself was depressing enough
What was I doing wrong in seeking happiness? I had no maturity -- a fact I'd come to recognize, when it came to understanding my place in the world. I had no skills to analyse anything, so I didn't know where I ought to fit in. Being a migrant of several years had much to do with my experience of anomie. I had longings that seemed to be answered only by returning to an African environment.
All of this time, I never felt, "perhaps I'm falling through the cracks?" Instead, I just assumed that fate was tricking me by leaving me behind in unrewarding twilight zones. I was very angry and very sad about this, but I hadn't any words for either of these strong emotions. I had no means to conceptualize why things had ended up as they had. They just had. It was fate -- and fate had no explanation for it.
Gradually, I gained an education. But progress was slow. I had a lot of mental blanks to fill. Also, people were generally hostile when I told them I had come from Africa. I had no idea what this meant. I was trying to find some traction in life, and I had no notion that I had a controversial "identity", because of where I had come from. I was trying to find those old emotions -- the ones involving being "one" with the organic world around me. I also wanted the thrill of imminent danger as these were the sensations I had grown up with because of the war.
Now, my feelings had totally abandoned me, and I was looking for the sort of environment where we could rendezvous again. I couldn't find one. Everything was green and sealed over -- not the sort of environment I was seeking.
This distressed me beyond words.
My breakthrough eventually came through reading Nietzsche. Through his writing, I gained access to some of these older, familiar emotions. I used his ideas to structure new meanings. My life gained inner purpose for the first time since I'd left Zimbabwe, back in 1984.
My path to salvation has been slow. I've learned how much a person can adapt to very different circumstances, and when she should retire from the fight -- not in a spirit of resignation, but with respect for knowledge about where the boundary lines are that preserve the self.
I've found that pleasure is not too hard to find, especially if one awakens old robust states of mind. Sources of happiness appear.
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