Posted 11/4/2013
Sometimes I believe that Americans exist primarily to demonstrate, once and for all, that money does NOT buy happiness. I've lived in Third World countries--India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bali, Mexico--and have observed that the peasants, the ones living off the grid, observably possess a degree of acceptance and satisfaction conspicuously absent in the "movers and shakers" in their countries. The United States of America, despite its great wealth, is not a happy place. Is it hope that curses us? Dreams of hitting the jackpot? Working our tails off for some nebulous security?
I'm not saying poverty equals happiness. I am saying that while one is seeking happiness--particularly in materialism--one is sure to never find it. In one of my songs called "Everybody Does It" I wrote:
We ride the whirling carousel and seek the golden ring
Around and round we go around but it don't mean a thing
We think we're making progress but it's just a carnie trick
A not-so-merry-go-round way to mesmerize a hick
I once saw a film about the French playwright, Moliere. One memorable scene showed a comedy being performed in a Paris street theater. A wigged and powdered gentleman was primping before his dressing mirror, looking adoringly at himself as he arranged his curls, his lace, and his makeup. Standing behind him, convulsed in mirth, clutching his sides and finally rolling on the floor...was the figure of death.
Life is here and life is now. Hope kills acceptance: we cannot see the perfection (what director Terrence Malik calls "the glory") because we're too busy struggling to attain something else. The cemeteries we unthinkingly drive by are reminders of the absurdity of hope, of vanity, of materialism.
What was it Miss Hathaway said in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies? "Oh, Mr Drysdale! Jethro wants to be a rock star!"
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