Seriously, folks, when’s the last time you felt this damn good?
Filmmaker/author Michael Moore
following the Democratic National Convention
Like Michael Moore, I felt “damn good” two weeks ago during and after the Convention. Driving back from the Buzz Café one morning after an enjoyable breakfast with a friend, I felt distinctly upbeat — trees awash in sunlight with a deep-blue backdrop, the Harrison Street Arts District looking rejuvenated and alive after several decades of effort, my own pleasant memories imbedded along this same stretch and, yes, a funereal election season had just shifted to hopeful.
I took note that happiness was dominant and fear, stress and worry had receded, almost to non-existence. I also took note of how seldom that happens. Too often I let the negative dominate the positive. And for once, instead of castigating myself about that, I realized we all have an inner carpenter’s “level,” which lets us know when we’re out of balance — if we pay attention to it.
A friend recently said she asked her granddaughter if she was going to be OK when she arrived for her first day of school. Jordan told her, “My daddy said, ‘Don’t let your sadness get in the way of your happiness.’”
As the two Disney Inside Out films so brilliantly illustrate, our two-sided experience of life is governed by the balance between Joy and Sadness. We need both. There are other emotions, of course, that can tip our inner life like a badly hung wall frame. We can’t be in perfect balance all the time. Life doesn’t allow that. Sometimes events tilt us dramatically into the negative and we suffer — from grief, physical pain, anger over injustice, shame, regret, anxiety about the present, fear for the future. You can hear this when people are on their cellphones within earshot in a public place.
We don’t tilt positive nearly as often, but when it happens, we need to take note. The good is always around and within us, like the sun dodging the clouds, burning through the overcast. Sadness can’t entirely eclipse joy. Neither can joy extinguish sadness.
But if we err, it’s in paying more attention to the dark than to the light. Look at the films showing at the Lake Theatre this week — almost all depict the dark side of life. News coverage of the election is obsessively locked into “negative framing.” The national media seems desperately afraid that anything else will make them look naïve — or worse, soft.
It’s possible, however, in our day-to-day, to maintain a certain equilibrium. It takes practice (and I am not always a model practitioner). The pre-requisite is accepting, even embracing, the two-sided nature of life. Martin Buber characterized it as “the melancholy of our fate,” but even that is negatively framed. Yes, the “bad news” is that happiness is fleeting. We can’t live permanently in bliss. But the “good news” is that sadness isn’t permanent either. It is not our default setting, not our bottom line (unless we make it so). Joy and Sadness are partners in a perpetual dance, otherwise known as “being fully human.”
We do have some (but not total) control. When sadness dominates, it is still possible to savor joy. And when joy dominates, we must not cling so tightly that we squeeze all the happiness out of it. Joy cannot be used as a shield against sadness.
All this takes practice. When you veer negative and the bubble has slid from the center of your inner level, look around for the positives. Don’t ask yourself, “What’s wrong with me? There are so many good things in my life!” That’s negatively framed. Simply let enjoyment distract you momentarily. When you’re in the middle of an imaginary tirade in your car (my particular specialty), railing against some injustice in life (which may be legitimate), and you suddenly notice a beautiful song playing on the radio, take a break from your outrage and listen. When you go back to the tirade, your tone might sound slightly more humane.
We tend to give sadness, fear, anxiety, anger, embarrassment, and condemnation more credence, and we underestimate joy. We think the negative side of life is more “real,” whereas the positive seems illusory, transitory. The goal is to give both sides equal weight. What gives us joy is all around us all the time. It isn’t negated by the negative, just as life is not negated by death.
Death is part of the life cycle, not the other way around. Joy, as in the two Inside Out films, is our baseline. Light is the constant in a dark universe.
But it’s enough for now to remember a dad’s sage advice to his daughter on the first day of school:
Don’t let your sadness get in the way of your happiness.