Burger King for unhappy people

What is happiness anyway?

I think that I know.

I think part of happiness is acknowledging and owning unhappiness when it happens so that your body can express it and allow it to pass through then it's gone making it possible to recenter to happiness.

Whereas if you deny unhappiness and do not allow it to express, rather, suppress unhappiness, keep it bottled then you're doomed to keep your unhappiness contained. But nonetheless kept.

Burger King counters McDonald's Happy Meals with their own Unhappy Meals and this created discussion at Jim Treacher's on PJ Media.

Treacher and his readers are against it. Universally.

Comments are interesting.

Call Me Mom said:

There is a fine line between acknowledging that life can be difficult and normalizing bad behavior. This ad crossed that line... and ran over some people on the other side of it. 

Swearing in public, slandering one's employer and throwing papers around creating a mess that other people have to clean up? Kicking lockers - otherwise known as damaging the property of other people? No. Do people feel like doing those things? Sure, but in a civilized society one exercises self control - that's what makes it civilized. 

It's the same fine line as the one between my swinging fist and your nose.

That reminded me of something that happened yesterday.

I was gardening!

My body no longer works. I didn't know it's become this serious. 

There are some seventeen large commercial size containers out there at different heights. All I was doing was amending the potting soil in each one. Seven large bags of different ingredients are mixed in to each container. 

It was fun.

I'm turning regular potting soil, which is very good and works very well, into super-duper extraordinary soil. 

Some of the pots are already filled so soil must be removed in order to accept the new material. 

A long time ago I saw advertisements for short portable stools advertised for elderly gardeners who cannot get down low to the ground and back up again without experiencing all kind of difficulty that makes gardening impossible, and I sat there watching the ads thinking, "Oh man, that is so f'k'n  LAME!" 

And now that's me.

I had to retrain my body yesterday to stop bending my knees while scooping material from bags and while mixing it into the pots. I kept bending them, and that wore out my legs. Like a skier. Except even worse.

I was like literally shaking.

Today my body aches all over, hands, wrists, legs, arms, everything because doing those things for a few hours was a shock to it. 

Here's the thing that happened.

While out there some dog was barking.

Some unhappy dog down there thought everything was a threat. 

But not for long.

The barking stopped. 

Right as a male voice nearby started yelling obscenities and that is very unusual. People around here are characteristically lovely, but this person is not.

I looked for the man yelling. To my left, one level down. In the corner. He's leaning over his balcony.

"Shut that fucking dog up! Stop that goddamn barking. That's right. Get that fucking dog outta here. Stop that fucking barking. We got children up here.

That cracked me up. 

I nearly spilled my rock dust. The children inured to loud aggressive masculine swearing cannot withstand alarmed barking. Such an unhappy dog. Such an unhappy household. What incredible natural comedy.

Before that, a few weeks ago, my doctor retired now I have a new one. Younger, more dynamic. Less experienced. 

He asked me recount the litany of everything that's wrong with me. All that I have suffered. All of my surgeries. All my medical experience. What a drag.

I don't like doing that because I pushed all that into the past, recalling it all makes it part of my present again. Then after recounting incidents one by one as they occurred to me as probably significant, weird things that when taken together like that are just miserable, I said,

"Oddly, after saying all that, I must hasten to add, I am happy." 

This perked him up. I said something very unusual for a doctor to hear. He was looking down writing and now he looked up at me with interest, 

"What?" 

I said, "After all that, I am happy. Happier than before when I was healthy."

And I honestly do not understand that.

When I was young I was a miserable shit. 

Overly concerned and worried about preparing for my future. Unhappy with my imagined future security not forming so well or so fast as I wanted. Overly concerned about saving and investing. Unhappy with my talents not recognized to my satisfaction. Obsessing about education and about career advancement. Concerned for the world. Concerned for my country. Concerned about status and all kinds of ridiculous shit. 

But then, as I was dying I was satisfied. Everyone around me was unhappy about that but I was not. Finally, my mystery was solved. I had always harbored a bizarre macabre overly intense interest in imagining the manner of my own death. Would it be fast, implying a violent accident, or would it be peaceful such as passing in the night, would it be short or would it be long. And now I know. And I'm satisfied knowing. I am psychologically settled. 

But then when I lived, I was suddenly happy. Every little thing made me happy. Riding a bicycle in the rain made me happy. Being caught in a downpour put me in direct contact with God. With water the sky coats my body with itself as thunder cracks around me and lightning flashes in daytime and it is glorious and I am extremely happy.

Getting into my truck makes me happy, driving it makes me happy, and then picking out my own food makes me happy, and then preparing it better than a restaurant does makes me happy.

Wearing the clothes that I want and not wearing the clothes that I must for business makes me happy. 

Not taking a bath, not doing the dishes, not wearing shoes, being a slob for day makes me happy. 

Saying, "Come in, excuse the mess, I'm slumming it right now" makes me happy. 

I am happy listening to a bum tell me about his unhappiness. 

Hearing a dog barking annoyingly, provoking a neighbor to swear at the top of his lungs then evoke children to excuse his aggression absolutely cracks me up. Happy. I'm happy to hear the ridiculous outburst. 

That guy could go for a Burger King Unhappy Meal. 

This morning I heard a cranky old man say the same thing.

He is an artist who makes these stupid little vignettes that look like handmade backgrounds for train sets. A stucco building facade with a door that has a red human tongue hanging out. So it appeared. I don't really know I tuned in and saw one such object in a flash. At any rate an artist who has attained some measure of recognition rather late in life. He said, "I am happy. What is happiness anyway? It's a measure of satisfaction. I'm happy doing what I want to do. In my curmudgeonly way I am happy." 

He is clearly an unhappy asshole. But he believes he is happy. He is comparing his present self to his previous self overall, and by that comparison now he is happy. Like me.

And I suppose that is an unusual thing to say. And that's why the young doctor perked up. I doesn't make sense, yet it's true.