What Is The Opposite Of Happiness?
The Blog Is Back!
I've been trying to chase a normal life. Pretty basic adulting 101 stuff.
I have been scrounging the internet on how to build a youtube channel recently, more on that later, and I came across a famous creator named Matt Pat. He and his wife Stephanie Pat ran a company called Theorists Media responsible for 5 youtube channels before they retired.
Stephanie in an interview revealed this idea that she read somewhere, and forgive my paraphrasing - The opposite of happiness is interesting. The idea comes from this place that the people living happy lives usually have pretty straight forward lives. Usually their routines are pretty set, their lives are mostly sorted out and in general they lead pretty chill lives. A lot of people on the other hand who have volatile jobs, have financial uncertainty, live high risk high reward lives, -ahem- artists -ahem- might not end up being the happiest people but do live way more interesting lives. Now again, I already apologised for paraphrasing so I hope you understand the general sentiment and can forgive me for not writing out the whole nuanced take. We're cool right?
Okay so that got me thinking is this true? The Grass is often greener on the other side and having recently graduated and moved out of being a formal student after 25 years (13 years of school and 12 years of various colleges.) I've been trying to chase a normal life. A life where I don't have to worry about where I'm going to find rent for next month, or if I'll ever be able to afford my own health insurance or if I'll be able to fix my laptop when it breaks. Pretty basic adulting 101 stuff. The problem though is, I kinda love all the work I do right now. It doesn't pay the bills even remotely but its a LOT of fun.
In the last 6 months or so, I've released my first full length album, gone on my first tour along the east coast, I released an EP with Eshaan& Priyana, started a music management business, started setting up my own teaching business, started a small time media company, moved to NYC, learnt how to use code to create a digital experience for my album and in the next month as part of the media company launching a new youtube channel to document my blind point of view and a podcast that interviews artists in New York. All of this while getting rejected from over 113 traditional jobs, places I thought I should have been going for and working towards. I also through applying for those jobs for the first time faced overt ablism. And I swear if I hear the question "How do you speak such good English?" one more time in my life, I will lose it. But but but, my life is so interesting right now. And really shifting my perspective, starting to not look at the opposite of happiness as sad but interesting has actually made it so that I am happier. Now if that sentence did not make any sense in your brain, let me explain. There was, there is, a part of me that is a little stressed, a little anxious, a little what if everything goes to shit, but knowing that this part exists actually makes it so that I know I am on the right path. If everything was super chill and I had nothing to worry about and life was pretty low effort, I'm sure it would be convenient but I can also see how I would get soooo bored. Which is why all of that actually makes me happier, knowing that somewhere this is the right path to be on.
Now I also absolutely detest the words hustle and grind and all of this modern lingo that tries to romanticise being miserable. The thing is its just so much fun that I am not actually miserable or burnt out or tired at all. I wake up and am excited to work on one of the projects inevitably need my attention. I also get to live a life where if someone calls me at 2 AM and wants to go out for a drink there is a good chance I can say yes because of the way my life is unstructured. I also have the unique privilege right now to not have any responsibilities other than myself. So that makes being broke easier.
In a way, living this life of chaos and in a way maximalist effort has taught me way more about life than any school ever did. But seriously the point of this post is, if you aren't happy are you living an interesting life? And if you are truly happy, don't change a thing, just chuckle at all of us and call us suckers. I don't know if this is true, but apparently John Lennon as a kid, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up said happy. And that truly is the only thing worth being.
The turn of the year seemed like the perfect time to revive this blog, so here goes nothing. I wanted to keep it way simpler and not be distracting so there are no like or comment buttons or random algorithmic trash that is here. If you like what you read and want to say something, you can hit reply on this email and I promise I will read every reply. If you don't want these emails there is a tiny unsubscribe button at the bottom that will get you far far away from here. But between you and me, please don't, the blog posts are going to be once every couple of weeks or so and will be exactly like the substack blog that most of you were on. and the newsletters will only go out once a month. So y'know no spam and stuff. But don't let me tell you how to live your inbox.
Much love, Eshaan.