07 May 2011

happiness in print

Good evening, folks! This morning I took the SAT for the second time, we got my shoes for Costa Rica (and conveniently here is the link to see the shoes, should you wish), and the WiFi is working again!
I have a feeling that this round of SATs were better than last time - the school was nicer than the other place and we got more breaks - 3 minutes to wolf down whatever food you might have brought and then flush it out of your throat with a quick, vigorous gulp of lukewarm water. Yum.
The first part on the "new SAT" is the essay, and it was on a topic I excelled in: happiness.
After all, I come here every night and preach to you about happiness, and sometimes the lack of happiness.
So it went somewhere along the lines of having limits and happiness. When I thought about it, I immediately thought of Walt Whitman and Thoreau and their carefree, limitless lifestyles. They must have loved it. But when I continued to think about it, limits are what keep us happy.
We are people, and people do not really think in terms of infinite in anything. I listened to a lecture on it in Oxford and it was over my head. Even in math, the only thing we ever say about infinity is that it exists and that we use this ∞ symbol for it. We can't understand something being infinite or never ending.
So we set limits for ourselves and we cannot break those limits and still be happy. I mean, it's good to break the routine every once in a while, but not too often. Think of Lord of the Flies, a paradise gone wrong. Or think what would happen if you didn't have to go to school or your job. I couldn't even take the snow week in January. That was rough. And yet it had been our dream to do whatever we want and never go to school. But by Thursday, we all wanted to go back.
So yeah, it's important to do different things. But complete freedom and no guidance will leave us lost and confused. And that's certainly not happy.

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