RevSpork: Downer mode

I've been on the low end of an emotional cycle for the last two weeks, and it's been tough to shake. Then again, should I try to shake it?

We can't be content all the time. Eventually something out there will take careful aim at our perky mood and shoot it down, be it family, CNN, or your favorite candidate on Top Chef getting shown the door. It's a part of life; certainly it's a part of civilized life. For each piece of new technology placed in our hands, it will give you at least one reason to lose your good humor. Your cell phone will give you bad news, as will your TV, radio, the internet, traffic lights - everything. And if somehow you were lucky enough to live in a technology-free society in New Guinea somewhere, I'll bet someone out there lost their mother to kuru, or the chief fell off a cliff. Eventually we're all miserable. And this is a good thing. (Not losing your mother to kuru: that would suck.)

I can't imagine being happy all the time. I'm grouchy by nature; why on earth should I prefer to go against my nature just so I can be permanently happy? I'd be miserable to be happy all the time. I've had Christian friends tell me about heaven, how I can have everything I want, and I'd be in an eternal state of bliss. I don't know about you, but that sounds like the opposite of heaven to me. I never want to have anything I want; what's the point of life (or the afterlife, for that matter), if I have no challenges, no desires, no possibility of defeat? Eternal bliss doesn't sound much better: what's the point of happiness if I can attain it merely by existing? It's like a self-esteem camps where everyone wins a trophy. Heaven, as described to me, strikes me as an eternal self-esteem camp. If that doesn't sound like a recipe for insanity, I don't know what is.

I like being grumpy sometimes. It makes me feel alive. But it does get emotionally exhausting after a while. Personally, I think two weeks is too long for melancholy. If this bout of misery lasts any longer, I'm going to need a perky break. Now, I had a couple of happy breaks last week (my volunteering, my trip to an apple orchard), but I could use a couple more. If any of you out there could provide for me the following, it would definitely perk me up: