The pursuit of Happyness

"It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?"

I've had chills down my spine every time Will Smith narrates this in the movie' Pursuit of happyness'

It has been the kind of feeling, or rather a hunch wherein I felt totally in agreement of what he says without knowing or rationalizing it. Cut to a recent self ranting and later me watching this movie again today. I finally had a closure. A closure not in ways of finding a solution or way out of this argument but in fact in terms of why I felt the same way.

The incident goes like this...

I was on a long flight from South Africa to Dubai after a month long vacation. My mind was relaxed, devoid of regular doldrums and I was in a state of superficial melancholy of going back to the 'regular life.' Add some emotional vulnerability of saying goodbye to my sister after a fantastic vacation and spike this with 3 glasses of red wine. It was a deadly cocktail...

The cherry on top was my undying tenacity on labeling 'year that was' and this was match made in heaven as I was flying in the early hours of January 1st. My writer's urge took a hormonal turn in cramped legroom of economy class and I used my phone to scribble this. This- what will be forgotten soon after I land, and only be frantically searched as I pause Will Smith standing in a public phone-booth having realization of his life. I draw this parallel as I was having  a similar premonition about my realization of fact I've always known...

I wrote

"Hello 2018!

I am quite thankful and yet perplexed. I sit on flight back to Dubai after a looong (sic) vacation.

It has been wonderful...Things are great but (remember how anything you say before but doesn't matter)...so ya, Things are great but there seems to be a stagnation. I wish for a better job, an exciting life, clarity on people in it, transparency of love...

The worst part is not that it has been same for a long time...

...The worst part is that I wonder if I'll feel any better or happier if I get any or all of these. They all seem to be so important and yet somewhere so irrelevant.

Then I think...why is it really necessary to get these or happiness figured at all? Why would knowing stable plans or designing life around it be so imperative? Would it be so bad to continue living in temporary solutions or gullible decisions or even momentary and short lived true feelings?

I am not sure. This isn't a new thought....Its been the same last year, or the one before, or probably a decade before. I find it so confusing to be in this unending chain of thoughts and I have only survived with one reason. I have got peace in one truth-

That of being true and in complete cognizance of how I feel. To own and react naturally based on them, no matter how impractical, improbable or immature...

All I figured so far is that it is extremely simple, natural, effortless and also an achievement to be in sync with your feelings and never deny them. They aren't meant to be right necessarily after all!

They may more often than not lead to a shortlived happiness but hey, no matter how short, they will be stronger than pretense happiness multiple times. - SG"

Hence I connect the dots. While we make or delay decisions and answers or actions since they don't seem like long term solutions to enticing state of eternal bliss, if the eventual state of happiness is indeed an illusion then isn't the whole premise of our decision making wrong? The concept of happiness must indeed be about the pursuit and not that of an actual place or state of being. Somewhere it will resonate with the concept of  'law of diminishing returns' for sure which is definitely experienced by all of us about things, people, relationships, cities and everything we so badly wanted at a point of time...

And hence I began another year, unbeknownst to my understanding of concept...

Another year to chase silly plans and drinking from the rationed drip of happiness, not digging for the well itself.