"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery" (page 221).
This quote truly speaks to me. After just reading it, I simply had to sit back and reflect on it. How many times in our lives do we try to replace our misery with happiness? The term happiness means different things to different people. To some, it means hours of playing video games. To others, it's a closet full of Italian and designer shoes. Still more, to many it's happily ever after to the one a person's been waiting their entire lives for. Everyone is searching to attain their own personal happiness in life. That's kinda why they decided to make This Place at all: to experience their own kind of secret happiness on earth. It all sounds kind of silly, but happiness is longed for. Some people are angry that they cannot achieve their own happiness so they live out of anger either toward themselves or to other people. Now THAT is just ridiculous. But if you think about it, each person really does live for their own kind of personal happiness. We all are living for something. Seriously, think about it. And that something we are living for is our own inner happiness.
This chapter says a lot about happiness, and how others go to achieve a taste of it. But I also truly loved this quote as well: "Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't" (page 228). This is so true. Happiness does not live on the surface. It does not live in beauty. I don't care how rich and famous people are in their lives. They just don't seem happy. They're living for reasons other than I have time to figure out. Beauty is not only an exterior thing: it's much deeper. Beauty truly correlates with happiness, but society has changed what beauty is all about. In my opinion, beauty is being happy with who you are. It's not showing other people how much weight I can lose or how tan I can get my skin. Why does society tell me that I need these things to be happy? No. Happiness is something learned and achieved, not bought. John understands this. Hopefully the messed up clone world he's living in can come to grips as well....
No comments:
Post a Comment