What is happiness?

Found this beautiful article on the net. Worth sharing. Link for the full article below.

"Perhaps one solution to the quandary of happiness – we want to be happy but not to alienate or hurt ourselves on the path to it – lies in realigning ourselves with the Romantics, who embraced both their joys and sorrows. ‘Ay, in the very temple of Delight,’ wrote John Keats in ‘Ode on Melancholy’ (1819), ‘Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine’. During Passover, Jews discard drops of wine before they drink so as to remember tragedies before embracing pleasures (so, too, when observant Jews marry: to step on a glass is to remember sadness as you embark upon a life of happiness). This embrace of melancholy might be a way out of the lose-lose prison of happiness, whereby pursuing it leads to disappointment and loneliness, and not pursuing it seems to guarantee that it’s never reached. We might never be truly contented unless we embrace our negative feelings. Indeed, negative feelings might not be so negative."

Link: https://aeon.co/amp/essays/how-did-being-happy-become-a-matter-of-relentless-competitive-work

Replaceable

While doing house-job after MBBS, I quit a prestigious rotation due to some arguments with a senior registrar on a pity matter. I was called by the professor/chief of the ward (hazri). He said something to me which I always carried in my heart. I advise the same to my rotating med students, house-staff and junior colleagues.

" When you are not there, someone will replace you  - and very quickly. This will stay true in every wake of life from work, sports, friendships, and relationships. Don't hurt yourself. All situations shall pass".

This was before I read Jane Austen. Many times I have to say in my heart: 'It shall pass".

On immigrants

یہیں پہ جیتے، انہی بستیوں میں مر رہتے

یہ چاہتے تھے مگر کس کے نام پر رہتے

۔ پیمبروں سے زمینیں وفا نہیں کرتیں

ہم ایسے کون خدا تھے کہ اپنے گھر رہتے

A simple thing from life, but I guess it is true

Mutability

Good or bad - LIfe goes on! 

The whole poem is indeed a masterpiece of Shelley - but this line was so out of box, it blew me away. It reminds me again that genius minds can see things which we can't see ::

We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;   -- wow!!!

"We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
  How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon
  Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
  Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
  One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;
  We rise.—One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
  Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,
  The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
  Nought may endure but Mutability."

False Coins

" In His Mercy, He accepts even false coins"   ~ Rumi

Winnie the Pooh show

I was talking to my son regarding his childhood favorite show and he enlightened me more on it. I was unaware of the underlying theme of this show but it is a beautiful concept delivered to kids from childhood. All the characters in the show have some mental illness but they all live friendly. Similarly, we humans should accept mental illness as a normal process and live happily with each other. No wonder, the show was a massive hit.

(I am not happy as we lost our huge stuffed Winnie during the move. He always used to make me smile).

• Winnie the Pooh: Impulsive eating disorder
• Piglet: Generalized anxiety disorder
• Eeyore: Depressive disorder
• Rabbit: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) 
• Owl: Dyslexia and narcissistic personality disorder 
• Tigger: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Kanga: Social anxiety disorder 
• Roo: Autism spectrum disorder
• Christopher Robin: Schizophrenia