Happy?

Lately, I’ve been asking myself whether there really was something as one being happy. What exactly does it mean to be happy? What criteria do we use to justify our happiness? Is it the feeling of being flustered? Or the rush of blood that we feel in our systems, making a thrill go up and down our spine? I’m not looking for answers to these questions, because if anything they are rhetorical in nature; but, I was still intrigued by the notion and asked my mother if she was happy. She spoke to me without glancing up from her crossword puzzle book and answered, “I don’t think the word you’re looking for is happy. It should be content, as in: are you feeling content?” She didn’t elaborate much afterwards; however, she had given me some food for thought.

Content... Are we content these days? The question really allows you to take a minute and honestly ponder about it. One might start with listing the reasons why he should be content: I have good friends, my health is not bad, and my income is passable... But after listing these superficial items on one’s finger, are they really enough to allow one to be content?

According to “Happiness Expert”, Dr. Robert Dahl, happiness is mostly a by-product of our interaction, expectations, and desires with our environment. He also adds that happiness is in fact a subjective short-term feeling or sensation; whereas content is a more stable state of mind. I’m not a Happiness expert and even I knew that, but having it said from an “expert” really drives the point home. Yes, I know... I’m abusing sarcasm at this point. Even though the advice was pretty basic and straightforward, it really got me thinking about the reasons why I’m NOT content, and the common denominator that kept on popping up was Lebanon.

I don’t want to write an entire blog post bitching about Lebanon, but after living here for a while, the allure of Lebanon has truly faded and all I see are the cracks that I had once disregarded. If you’re a lover of parties, the nightlife, going out to meet friends over drinks in the middle of the week, and spend hours over pointless banter then Welcome to Lebanon and Enjoy Your Stay!

The concept of “Time is Money” is wasted on the Lebanese; when they say they’ll meet you in ten minutes, I always add an additional twenty. If you’re meeting Lebanese gay guys, add an additional hour to those ten minutes. In Lebanon, it’s all about being “Fashionably Late”. It’s about being the center of everyone’s undivided attention and whatever you do; please don’t forget to post it on Facebook the next day with “outrageous” comments detailing every aspect of your night out with the “awesomest” people... Because to be honest, nothing makes my day better than having the honour to browse through your drunken photos in the morning. Ah... How I envy you folks; to be so dumb, vapid, and void of any ambitions other than having a six-pack for the summer and achieving the perfect shade of bronze on your skin. I don’t know how one can even think of looking pale and pasty in the summer time in Lebanon; the audacity.

However, the one aspect of Lebanon that I find the most note-worthy is the constant stream of materialistic behaviour that everyone seems to be contaminated with. Everywhere you go it’s a competition to see who can drop names the most while perfecting their snobbery. It’s all about brand names and other “luxuries” that they’ve probably purchased by mortgaging their house or it’s actually the bank’s money... It’s a superficial world based on the belief that it’s all about “being seen” and I find it hilarious when people take their “going outs” so seriously; like anyone actually cares whether you’re going to White or SkyBar tonight, because in reality, everyone is so caught up in their own make-belief world in which they think they are God’s gift to everyone that they are too preoccupied with themselves to give a damn about you.

Peter Pan, the children’s book, is about a boy wanting to stay eternally young; however, even he realized that Never Ever Land was no longer that fun – we all have to grow up sooner or later. Lebanon is Never Ever Land in my opinion, a place where whether you are 18 or 50 it’s the same issues that are relevant regardless the cohort age group: where are the latest hang-outs and where are the trendiest places to be seen? There is no normal succession of mental development in this country – everyone is constantly in a “Party Phase” of life, which explains perfectly why this country was voted the Party Capital of the World; because, other than partying (and prostituting themselves to Arabs) Lebanese know very little else. Oh, I forgot... They are expert bullshit artists; I mean look at the politicians. They play football together and the next day, everything is okay with the world; archenemies are now best friends – a true Disney Fairytale ending.

I won’t even start on the driving in Lebanon, because that in itself needs another blogpost... The next thing I need to touch upon is the Lebanese BlackBerry obsession: everyone has one these days, because everyone is so busy with their “social calendars” that they need constant updates from other people. Okay, I admit that I have a BlackBerry as well, but I got mine at the age of 23; when I went and bought mine, I was the OLDEST there – kids, aged 12, had the Bold BlackBerry which cost 900$... But I guess they are prepping to be future business men...

With FIFA season on its way, the Lebanese have even managed to make me despise football. They act as though they are originally German or Brazilian when in fact they might originally be from some village in the ass-end of nowhere and they probably used donkeys for transportation ten years ago; they stick those flags to their cars and have fights over who is going to win – and I’m like: Seriously? Is this what we have come to? Fighting over Brazil and Germany in the middle of the street while cussing each other’s mother’s genitals? Half the time I feel like pulling over and shoving those flags and those nasty looking hand things that they dangle on their rear-view mirrors, up their asses; but that’s just me.

If someone were to ask me a year ago if I was content, I would have said: Yes; but today, with the new mindset that I have, I see things very differently. Lebanon isn’t a place that allows you to achieve your potential and seek to be the person you want to be. There is no room for personal growth and exploration of one’s talents and abilities. No, in Lebanon you follow the herd because if you stand out, the consequences are not pretty. I know things outside aren’t that different; there will always be vapid, superficial, materialistic, and crooked people wherever you go. However, a principal of mine said (Edgar Chemmali, to be in fact) that we need a lot of different people to make a world; however, in Lebanon there is no one unique or different – sadly, everyone is the same. Very few people think outside the box and that is a true tragedy.

So, the next time you’re thinking about your “happiness” or how content you are; do what I did and take a look around and then ask yourself: Is this the environment in which I can be content in? Let your answer tell you what to do next...

Till then, I’ll leave you with your happy thoughts.

Afraid...

This weekend we celebrated my grandfather's 91st birthday. As my grandfather (or Dede, as we call him) blew his candles, he started to cry. When my father asked him why the sudden outburst of tears, Dede replied by saying that he just realized he was getting closer to dying. I found it so surprising that at 91, after having lived a sufficiently satisfying life, my grandfather was petrified of dying... And then I asked myself: Why are we really scared of death?
As I lounged on my bed that night, I thought about the reasons people were so afraid of the grim reaper and the answer dawned on me... People were afraid of being forgotten, of life moving on without them, of realizing that your loved-ones might mourn you for a while but eventually they will learn to continue living without you. It's upsetting to know that the world will keep on going on as though nothing has changed, with or without you. It's like being invited to a party, but for some reason you were unable to attend it. You get upset because you missed out on the catfight, the bitching, and the fun gossip that was raised that night. Party-goers might ask where you are, but after a while, they just forget that you're not there and continue to enjoy the party without you.
Think about the ancient Egyptians, why did they build those enormous pyramids? Yeah, they believed in an afterlife; but they did them because they wanted to leave a legacy - something to be remembered for. The same was true about Achilles, the immortal soldier. He knew he was immortal, but he wanted to leave a mark in the world; that's why he fought in Troy, the battle that eventually got him killed (the poor thing did not know that his one weakness was his heel...) We are not scared of death... We are scared of being forgotten. It's plain and simple, albeit a little self-centered too if you really think about it. American poet, Maya Angelou once wrote in a poem "People might forget what you said; they might forget what you did; but they will never forget how you made them feel." I truly believe that that is real. At the end of the day, I really don't care if someone made a million dollars before dying - it's important to know what he did with that money that really counts. Maybe he donated it to charity, or maybe he spent it all on hookers and hash... Perhaps that is how he wanted to be remembered. However, this quote did stir a dilemma in me: If people act in ways to be remembered, is anything they do then really altruistic or is it just for "show"? Some might say: "Who cares? As long as they are doing something..." But it would be interesting to explore the real motive behind their actions, I suppose.
Being highly intrigued with the topic of death - I know, I can be morbid at times, and I was having a rough weekend - I decided to ask my sister Leah what she thought about people's fear of death. I asked her if people's "death-phobia" was a rational one. She shrugged her slender shoulders and answered my question with one of her own: "What's the purpose of life anyway?" She then turned on the E! Channel, signaling the end of our very "philosophical debate" - The Kardashians were on and Kourtney's water just broke. But I was too engrossed with the new issue Leah had raised: What really is the purpose of life? Is there a unity to it all or is life a fragment of different vignettes of our lives, randomly collaged together to give us a semblance of unity? Was everything that happened to me in the past, meant to happen? Where there two diverging paths in the concrete jungle that is my life, and I have taken the wrong path at one point? I know I have met a lot of disappointments (sorry all the guys I went out with... You were all sad excuses) along that path... But I couldn't stop but picturing my life as a short movie montage with cheesy music playing in the background. I'm not expecting an answer to these questions, I know they are rhetorical and up for debate; but I enjoyed contemplating about them throughout the day. "Food for thought," as my cultural studies teacher Mr. Smith would have labeled them.
Death... It creeps on us and no one can avoid it. No one is spared, we are all going to end up six feet under one day - there is no need to sugar coat it or beat around the bush about it. However, Existential Psychologists and Philosophers once wrote that accepting death and learning that our fate is to die, that is when we start to live a genuine life. We start to live the life we want for ourselves, not the one dictated by those around us. I always find the question: "What do you want to do before you die?" so annoying. I'm not sure what I want to do next week, let alone think about the things I want to do before I cease living. I always answer: "Not have to answer this question." I think living life by following a "list of things I want to do" is not fun anyway... It just seems so "organized" and pre-planned".
Death... We all flirt with death... We all get a taste of what it would feel like to have the world continue to go on without us... We do it every night we fall asleep. For if you come to think of it, death is just a deep sleep... And as far as I'm sure, no one is afraid of sleeping...