Happiness TM

(editor's note: if you're here for fun, check out the last chapter of my blog entry called 'Part-time bums'. It's quite funny. The rest of this blog, is for myself)

What the fuck am I doing here?
A valid question, wouldn't you think?
It's not like I really don't have a clue, mind you.
In fact, here's some answers and other ramblings.
It's 3.39 and I can't sleep.
Stomach trouble you see. I thought I learned my lesson two nights ago, when I spend it puking out that mean-ass pizza I ate at midnight, just before hitting the sack. Yeah, I swear, I thought I could just magically shut my eyes and my stomach would empty itself faster and swifter than the Jetsons's zooming garbage disposal of the hopeful future. Well it didn't. You find yourself lying in bed, feeling the food somewhat at throat-height and praying that denial will make everything better again. Plan B: Deny harder. So then, 48 hours later, long past vomitting myself into redemption, I decided I was cured enough to go out for some spanish food with my classmates from Animation. Let me tell you, there is no doctor on this planet that will recommend you Spanish food for curing intestinal flu. No "drink plenty of lime thee, a handful of patatas bravas with alioli and you'll be on your feet by tomorrow". You get what you eat hombre... So here I am. Repenting. Last night I told my spanish friend from Barcelona I was sick, he asked me if I was happy. As in, Happiness happy. Because there's a theory on how particular sicknesses are symptoms of particular mental troubles. I said 'Dude, that's quite a question. I know it can't be all blamed on that mean-ass pizza, but... dude, that's quite a question!'. Besides, am I happy? Yeah. I actually am.

I recently watched a brilliant video about happiness, synthetic happiness and its relationship with choice. It seems that the difference in happiness that we expect to result from two different scenario's, is ultimately much less than we think. In other words, whether you get want you want or don't, you end up being just as happy as you generally are. And that's where I am right now, generally happy. (Oh the video, by the way, is to be seen here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/97 . If you feel like today might be your last day, and you've got the vague options of declaring your volcanic love to that one chick, bungee jumping naked, or watching this video with your last 20 minutes, trust me, go for the video).

So anyway. Here I am in Spain. Life's all experimental. Also, I'm getting uber-lazy around here. But, you know, I'm not all that displeased with that. If I really wanted to work hard, I would. If I'd want to make my first million euro's before the age of 25, I'd have watched a few less episodes of Family Guy. Today my teacher said I'm hedonistic. I agree. Also, today she officially acknowledged I'm her favourite student. OK, see we kind of knew, or at least, my fellow classmates and I joked around about it. But coming from her... well some things still make me purr, in a kid-with-an-apple kind of way. See I'm really enjoying myself at Animation class. You must understand, I hate drawing. I came to hate it at Industrial Design, where my dutch teachers found a million ways (see: rules) to make it truly horrible. Perspective, shading, ovals, no pencil, parallel lines, colour combinations, contrast, shiny corners, more ovals (seriously, ovals are the anal medicine plugs of drawn art) and reflective materials... yuck. But check this out, hand drawn animation, has a kind of divine way to reward your hard work. It's exactly the way karma is supposed to make everything good and fair in this world: you pain yourself into drawing, frame by frame (and we're talking 12 frames for a mere second), each frame meaningless in itself, but just a bit different from the previous one, and it builds up, marking their path through the guidance of carefully thought-of key frames... until you're done, and then you capture all your frames, again, one by one, into an insignificant program, who will, ultimately, export an AVI file. Never, has AVI sounded so delightful. Because you see, there's that magic moment when all your frames turn into a moving animation. And the little details or potential flaws you worried about are not to be found in this mesmerizing string of movement. It's so rewarding that you watch it with the Loop function on, in grateful silence. This is Karma. The good way.

It's 4.04, it seems like my food has decided to go down my digestive system rather than up again. Such a powerful image: here's your sins, grease and all, rummaging and rumbling in your stomach, keeping you awake. Will they come back up? Or will they fade out and away, leaving your conscience nirvana-white again? And will you learn your lesson?

Sometimes I make a joke and a person that's close enough to me will say 'Tal, that's not a good joke', and I'll realize I indeed went too far. And that's ok. Woody Allen said; If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative".

Also, I realize some people just want to have a good laugh reading my blog. Don't I know nobody wants to read long blog entries? Of course I do. But this ain't a powerpoint presentation, it's my diary, for myself, for later. You, you're just a guest in my world. In any case, for you pure entertainment, there is a blog entry of mine called 'Part-time bums' which is generally considered to be funny. Go and have fun.

Umpf

Tal