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November 09, 2006

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pinocchio

Now, as much as you know I agree with you on the country music issue, is there not something else to be said about it here? Like, the abjection you feel in its presence (and I mean you, not 'one', and of course I)... the coded misery and nostalgia of it all... perhaps, for as long as we have to deal with country music we cannot experience that closure; perhaps that is the difference between people who like it and people who don't - that those of us who are sensible are optimistically seeking that closure, and that the rest of them are living permanently without it. Just a thought.

ian

a few years ago i might have agreed with this essay. i certainly feel that i can see where you are coming from.

but basically, in my own reality, happiness is an emotional state which has as strong a coloring of real reality as do anger or discomfort, and is as "obvious", much as a human being can usually tell if they are angry or hungry or whatever without involving any thought process or language or those words themselves whatsoever. it cannot simply be equated with a lack, or with death. to do so is merely a rhetorical tactic. nice try though :)

i can say this only having experienced happiness to a significant degree at this point, however. and if that experience could have existed without years of suffering, i doubt. so id say thats the potential pay-off for the suckiness of being smart and aware in this world, if you are lucky and smart enough you can manipulate the world itself so that your own situation is tailored to your desires. getting a lot of money is one way to do this but far from necessary, if your bliss takes you away from high income banking career...

blahfeme

Ian. thanks for this. I can see you happy - good for you. My point was not to denegrate happiness as such, but to ty to contextualise our happiness-fixated culture and to understand the terms on which we valorise, use and abuse the notion of happiness. My problem with your response in particular is that it seeks to place happoiness in some kind of naturalised place beyond rhetoric, beyond culture. It ismprecisiely this kind of thing my essay wa s trying to displodge. Cheers for you comments

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