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     '                                                                  '
    '   anada      "Jason Discovers the Secret of Happiness"     18 jan  '
   '     263                       by Jason                       2001    '
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        I have discovered the secret to happiness.  Yes, people have spent
 their entire lives searching for the key to eternal bliss.  Charlatans have
 written books on how to be happy.  Religious dudes say you'll be happy after
 you're dead... if you're good.  Politicians claim they can make you happy if
 you vote for them.  Hollywood makes you feel like a freak if you're not
 happy.

        The real secret, though, is nefarious in its simplicity.  I can sum
 up the source of eternal glee in one word.  Granted, that one word has an
 above average number of syllables (FOUR of them), but it's one that anyone
 can remember.  It's one that will strike a chord deep inside everyone who
 reads it.  Everybody knows the word, even the people it applies to.

        But before I go into that, let me remind everyone that my birthday is
 coming up!  That's right, the big 2-7.  Egad, age is creeping up on me.
 Just in case anybody is in the gift market, though, I could really use a
 couple of exercise wheels for my tarantulas, some sharkskin bikini briefs,
 and a hot chick of my very own.  Everyone else will swelter in the eternal
 fires of hell.

        Where was I?  Oh yeah, the secret of happiness.  What is it?

        STUPIDITY!

        NO, I'm NOT being cynical, either.  It's true.  The dumber someone
 is, the happier they are.  Actually, it's not stupidity per se that's the
 issue.  It's the gleeful willingness to extinguish the flame of cognitive
 thought and immerse oneself in a fantasy world of pixie dust and rabbits who
 can talk.  "Stupidity" is just a much simpler way of saying it.  Of course,
 if you lack the ability for cognitive thought in the first place, the so
 much the better.

        Let's face facts, kiddies.  The world is a brutal place from top to
 bottom, in spite of the hippies who believe in all of that happiness and
 light crap, the idealists who actually believe they can make everyone happy,
 and the religious people who attribute everything to some divine plan
 without one iota of that pesky thing called evidence.  Most of these people
 are smart enough, but they lock away any part of their brain that says "gee
 whiz, maybe the world is a little more complicated than we think."  But
 then, if they BOTHERED to consider that the world might be a predatory,
 random, naturally destructive place, that might infringe upon their
 happiness.

        People are so silly.  They go and immerse themselves in some half-
 assed escapist philosophy, drink themselves into a stupor, or take up
 hobbies like basket weaving all in an attempt to shut off that quiet nagging
 doubt that they don't have all the answers.  Heck, even those people who
 turn all Goth and claim to embrace all that dark side crap are doing the
 same thing, only they're masochists and are making themselves happy in a
 backdoor kind of way.  God forbid anything should disrupt the happy little
 shell of artificial absolute truth that they created around themselves.

        That's why I can't help but look at retarded people with a certain
 amount of envy.  THEY sure seem happy.  If anything makes them unhappy, they
 forget it pretty quickly.  Sure, it sucks to be developmentally impaired,
 but isn't that worth trading off for a life of happiness?  Would you be
 willing to have yourself lobotomized in order to attain a state of bliss for
 the rest of your life?  Heck, most people do that to themselves by shutting
 off their brains. I wish I could.  Damn my brain.

        The upshot of all this is that I've though of a wonderful new insult.
 I can just call someone "happy."  I can walk up to someone and say, "You
 know, you're the happiest person I know."  They'll say something like, "Gee,
 thanks," not knowing that I really meant that they were mind-bogglingly
 stupid.

        And all this is true.  If you don't believe it, then I guess you're
 just too happy.
                                                                            
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 `   anada263   by Jason                            (c) 2001 anada e'zine   `