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My roommate and I were talking last night about happiness and contentment.

She was worried because she had 3 large vodka and tonics but she wasn’t too drunk. She said the only way she knew she had been drinking was that she was happy, and that normally only happens with drink.

She asked if I was happy and I said yes. I was in a fairly good mood, I had just eaten a meal I had cooked and I was watching some Good Eats. She thought I was just content and then complained that we set the bar low. I don’t think that’s it though. We control our happiness by deciding what will make us happy, or at least by trying to see what will make us happy and then attempting to achieve it or facilitate it.

I do not feel that I was content, since for me contentment means that one’s desires have been satisfied, that one’s need of something has been satiated. Happiness is not being in a bad mood, happiness is appreciating good fortune, or forgetting the things that drag you down temporarily. We can’t be happy all the time, but at that moment I had no needs to be satisfied, I was simply eating, watching and existing without peril.

I’ve had a thought the past couple days that has been resurfacing occasionally: maturity is trying to be happy despite the occasionally overwhelming suckiness of life. I have had a fortunate life and I appreciate it, but I become a buddhist when it comes to my outlook on things: life is suffering. That doesn’t mean I should be depressed all the time however, since that would only compound the prevalent suck.

There is no punchline to this entry, I feel only that these paragraphs help me realize the logical justifications for sometimes seemingly logic-less emotions.