Can I?

Are you happy?

Not that I care, but I wanted to start at the deep end.

How can you expect to be happy when your happiness can only be found in the things you do not have?

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Not this shit again.

We have had enough of the miserable millionaire crying in his Maserati spiel. But it misses the point. We think it’s about the millions. No. It’s about the misery. No, hoes. That’s not the point, either. The point is this: hearing about the miserable millionaire makes you vaguely, quietly, aimlessly Happy.

Your discontentment with yourself is what gives you meaning. And your happiness, a goal. It’s why hearing about the other getting wasted on their needs all along and still feeling like shit gives us a sense of comfort. It’s not so much sadism as it is permission. Permission to relax, for a bit.

We are in a state of unceasing self-mastery. Call it anxiety. Call it spirituality. Call it virginity. And we’ve become addicted to this state. We hold on to it, believing it’s what will take us to higher states—whatever that means for you. But your love for the current state precludes your ability to get to the higher state. You cock block your way into happiness and then wonder why you are still horny for more.

Because everything you thought you controlled controls you.

Because you believed being happy now would slow you down from being happy later.

Because you constipated your way through life, saving up for the one day when everyone—every one of those dingbats you never wanted to be like—paid attention.

The real point is that the millionaire in the Maserati had shit his pants. That can make anyone a wee miserable.

Happiness has become codified as something to show for. Like wealth, fame, and neck tattoos. You think you are afraid of sadness? No, sister. It’s happiness that scares you. Your fear of sadness is really a fear of losing control. And your quest for happiness is permission to (lose control). No wonder it feels like you are wearing wet underpants all the time.

I am not going to tell you it’s okay to be sad. This is not Instagram and also because we’ve taken that to be permission to hold tightly to our sadness because you said it’s okay and I don’t know what not okay feels like, so yeah: #Blessed.

And I am not going to tell you it’s okay to be Happy. I am not Mark f*cking Manson.

To be candy crushed, I have no idea what I am going to tell you. And in that not knowing, there’s both happiness and sadness. In that not knowing is my permission to relax, for a bit. Yeah, it was about me all along.

Should you be Happy?

Should you be Sad?

I don’t know. All I know is this:

Can you?

And how do I know I can?

The same way you know you are.

When you don’t have to ask.