Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Hypothetical Conversations 1 - Happy Whatever

Hope: Hey, happy new year! Sorry it's little late considering it's halfway through January!

Jade: Wait a minute, I got rid of you last year. You're not supposed to be bugging us anymore.

Hope: It's just like in the movies, you know. Good guys never die!

Jade: Huh, well it's too bad not everything in life happens like the movie happy endings. Then the two of us wouldn't always be at loggerheads.

Hope: Yes, unfortunately, I now solely exist for the purpose of conversational purposes. As much as I try, I don't have much influence on her anymore....You don't have a problem with me hanging around, do you? *blink blink*

Jade: I will if you cause any more trouble, but I suppose it would be fun to have you around and have someone to pick on every now and then. It was getting a bit boring in the Zen room.

Hope: So antisocial! It's a brand new year ahead. You should be looking forward to positive new things and new possibilities!

Jade: Well, in my opinion, there is no logic in having such expectations. And wishing people happy new year, happy birthday or happy whatever-the-occasion-is, is actually quite redundant.

Hope: Why so? :-( Everyone likes to look forward to good things

Jade: Simply because there's very little chance that anyone can go through an entire year constantly experiencing happy things. There will be crappy events as well, and one is unlikely to be happy through that. Birthdays are not always happy too. You might go out for a birthday meal with family and end up in a huge @ss nothing fight, a concept most clearly explained by Dane Cook. Then what is supposed to be a happy event turns out to be kinda sucky, and rather ironic when after a nothing fight, everyone sings that happy birthday song with some misguided conception that that will make everything better. Christmas isn't always merry either. A lot of people become more lonely and depressed during Christmas and New Year. Apparently the expectation to be happy during that time is just too much pressure to handle for some people that it's make them even more unhappy. So greeting people a happy-whatever sometimes just makes people pretend to be happy because that's what expected of you during new year, or Christmas or birthdays. Which might actually make them feel even crappier if they aren't actually happy during that time. So why make people pretend to feel something they don't actually feel? On the other hand, if they do actually enjoy themselves and have a wonderful year, birthday, or whatever event, then you don't need to wish them a happy one, since they would already be happy. Hence, redundant! So if I had it my way, we'd do away with greeting people with 'happy whatevers', perhaps replacing it with a greeting that raises less potentially false hopes, such as "May your new year/birthday/christmas be generally not crappy".

Hope: .......I don't think that idea is going to take off very well....

Jade: Yeah, I know it won't. People still like to wish happy whatevers coz' we like to think things will turn out great even if all indication shows otherwise. To think otherwise is to lose hope, and not many people can deal with living without hope. They end up doing dumb stuff like become alcoholics or druggies, jumping off buildings. The lonely ones are even worst. In some desperate attempt to hang on to whatever hope they have left, they sleep around for attention, or fall in love with some unknown people on the net and lose their life savings to them when they ask for it. Those are just examples of course. The stupid things hopeless people do are quite endless.

Hope: Gosh, that's terrible.... I guess that's why everyone needs a little bit of me! I mean, hope! *grin*

Jade: Usually yes, but hope, and that means you too, can be just annoying if reality doesn't commensurate with what one hopes for. Good thing is that it is actually quite possible to do without hope. One just needs to do away with emotions.
Think about it, without hope, you usually feel despair, sadness, depression, and you end up doing some or more of the stupid stuff I just mentioned. But without emotion.... There's no sadness or despair or loneliness. And no doing stupid things.
Plus you don't get pissed as easily at other people doing stupid things, which is definitely a plus point. Although it's quite difficult driving on Malaysian roads...

Hope: Whoa, whoa...waitaminute. No emotion also means no joy or happiness too. How can anyone enjoy life like that? Unless you only take the good without the bad?

Jade: Not possible. If you don't want to feel the bad, you can't really enjoy the good feelings either. Coz' there's always the possiblity that the source of your good feelings will lead to sucky feelings later on. Like having someone you consider a best friend and enjoy many good times with, suddenly up and betray you. By completely ignoring you. Or stealing your lover. That kind of sucky.
So best to remain emotionally platonic under all circumstances.

Hope: Hahahaha, ok now I'm convinced you're crazy. We're human, not robots! How can we just 'feeling' stuff. It's not like a switch you can turn on and off.

Jade: True that. But it's possible. All you need is the right motivation and the mental strength to not jump off a building first. I would say having one's hopes dashed multiple times in the course of a few months counts as good motivation.

Hope: ....Well, I refuse to believe that's that. And I'm going to do my best to show you that this year and every year after that can be happy! Ok?

Jade: Yeah ok. Whatever.


******

Update on 17th Feb 2013: This comic strip from Cyanide and Happiness pretty much says it all! :D

 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRolcO4ENk8jcIpRszKUq1_P1jMT8EirTJbLocArGduecWla3HY4ioInPdakxf03PDBpowAoSeIzcS_peMdl70jr0X1DSfT-EkPkQyUEO-0zGPzN2dQU_Fb9l-f5Itdsb-gN5xcQ/s1600/newyears_2011.png

1 comment:

sel said...

I'm definitely with Jade on this one....