Laughter and Lightness

We are all going over to Gina's house this afternoon to celebrate our last week of undergraduate classes. (She's the beautiful laughing one adjacent photo)

Abraham Lincoln once said "People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." But, I don't agree with that. (Gosh, now I think I'm smarter than Abe Lincoln. Graduating from college is making me sophomoric). But, if what Abe said was the case we all would be happy. Happiness is what we want as human beings, above all other things. (at least according to Eudaemonic philosophers like Aristotle and Plato.)

I think horrible things happen to people, and we do horrible things to ourselves and they bring us to dark places we don't want to go. And that, no matter how hard we try, sometimes we are just hurting too much to be happy.

But I do believe that at least part of happiness is a choice. Alternately, I think people are about as happy as they realize they are. Even through the weight of existence we can feel the lightness of laughter and can realize, in that moment, that we are happy. Sadness has a way of being exponential, compounding itself as we acknowledge it's presence. But we are never as heavy-hearted as we think we are, we just have to realize where the happiness has been hiding all along.

(photos) on film with Pentax K1000