yoga for knuckleheads #8: "the happiness hoax?"
In the little room where everybody signs in and places footwear and keys in cubbyholes before entering the yoga studio, there is a festive air among mostly women of various ages who are about to enter Samantha’s class. They exchange greetings and information on how they are doing and what they are doing. As they walk into the studio they brim with an almost giddy joy in anticipation of yoga—perhaps the same feeling I felt for nearly five decades whenever I entered a basketball court to join and greet men I would play with and against while engaging in the usual banter born long ago of a certain camaraderie of sharing among super alpha males.
I observe this same anticipation of a joyous participation on the tennis court when these four middle-aged women show up to play doubles as I whack away in nonstop rallying with my pal Sean at 8 in the morning. They greet us with chirpy ‘good mornings’ and each other with hugs and ask about health and family. As they warm up close to the net there is nonstop chatter and laughter, a totally different kind of exchange than what I shared with my basketball coterie. When the game is on they are competitive as well as complimentary, and during breaks they resume the chatter and laughter and I am sure they go for coffee or snacks afterwards.
One could call it happiness.
These yoga people, almost 20 of us, including the small scattering of men, appear to be experiencing that same feeling, though it is less jocular; a hum of jubilation at indulging in a quieter passion, an exercise dedicated to “feeling good and freeing oneself of all complications and pressures.”
I wonder if these people, because of yoga, portray the same kind of “hop-in-their-steps” happiness away from the yoga studio, or, as Samantha often mentions, they feel stress, anxiety and depression. In America, the pursuit of happiness one way or another is an obsession. I have come in contact over the years with men and women who seem driven to be happy and upbeat, almost as if they are trying to bludgeon or defeat unhappiness with the same fervor they aspire to happiness. Such people seem to have a difficult time admitting they suffer any shred of unhappiness, that their life isn’t going the way they want it to, or that they wake up in the morning with a feeling of emptiness and futility and dread and despair just because of the existential burdens and barriers we face as humans possessed of the ability to feel and think.
Yoga takes up an hour and a half, and while it goes on we are subtly bombarded with words like love and warmth and heart, and even the most strenuous poses sift down to our joints and organs and create surrender to utter release, a sense of relief from the world outside this minute microcosm of people searching for something better or more enlightened than what they have—a reprieve, however ephemeral.
Does this hour and a half flow into the rest of our days and soften the edges of the “ongoing unpredictable maelstrom lurking around every corner?”
I, for one, have never trusted happiness, which I consider brief moments of elation and elevated calm amidst the “ongoing unpredictable maelstrom” that constantly derails our normal existence, a bugaboo which we fight, for the battle against unhappiness might be a greater ambition than the pursuit of happiness, even if we are not aware of it.
Yoga is certainly the pursuit of happiness, more so than the battle against unhappiness, and possibly one of the more heroic battles in our culture. It is populated by people who have thought about their lives and the world, it seems to me, who have read books and traveled and achieved sophistication a notch above the debilitating pedestrian dedication to work and money and things and family security that comprise the so-called American dream.
My battles with unhappiness, profound disappointment and I suppose depression were, over a period of years, fought with mountainous boozing, drugs, womanizing, and turning myself into a sort of entertainment life-of-the-party-always-on-stage buffoon bartender in the crazy organ-hounding grab bag of Manhattan Beach in the 1980s. There was no time to think about this siege against unhappiness and psychological pain engendered by the thwarting of a youthful dream. But eventually it precipitated an even deeper misery and I escaped just in time to salvage my health.
Looking back, I have never been happier and wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Plummeting into the ultimate escape hatch, exulting in the debauched hedonistic life, seeking guiltless intoxication and titillation at every turn is, to me, the pinnacle of happiness and over-shadows yoga like Mount Everest. Without it, at that time in my life, I would have perished.
.
But today I will take yoga. I am thankful for it, as it seems to alleviate just about every physical malady confronting me at this stage of my life; a salvation while not a miracle, certainly a greatly appreciated replacement for hitting the winning basket and feeling that ultimate buzz of victory.
Still, I wait for yoga to give me the courage to trust happiness and go beyond.
I observe this same anticipation of a joyous participation on the tennis court when these four middle-aged women show up to play doubles as I whack away in nonstop rallying with my pal Sean at 8 in the morning. They greet us with chirpy ‘good mornings’ and each other with hugs and ask about health and family. As they warm up close to the net there is nonstop chatter and laughter, a totally different kind of exchange than what I shared with my basketball coterie. When the game is on they are competitive as well as complimentary, and during breaks they resume the chatter and laughter and I am sure they go for coffee or snacks afterwards.
One could call it happiness.
These yoga people, almost 20 of us, including the small scattering of men, appear to be experiencing that same feeling, though it is less jocular; a hum of jubilation at indulging in a quieter passion, an exercise dedicated to “feeling good and freeing oneself of all complications and pressures.”
I wonder if these people, because of yoga, portray the same kind of “hop-in-their-steps” happiness away from the yoga studio, or, as Samantha often mentions, they feel stress, anxiety and depression. In America, the pursuit of happiness one way or another is an obsession. I have come in contact over the years with men and women who seem driven to be happy and upbeat, almost as if they are trying to bludgeon or defeat unhappiness with the same fervor they aspire to happiness. Such people seem to have a difficult time admitting they suffer any shred of unhappiness, that their life isn’t going the way they want it to, or that they wake up in the morning with a feeling of emptiness and futility and dread and despair just because of the existential burdens and barriers we face as humans possessed of the ability to feel and think.
Yoga takes up an hour and a half, and while it goes on we are subtly bombarded with words like love and warmth and heart, and even the most strenuous poses sift down to our joints and organs and create surrender to utter release, a sense of relief from the world outside this minute microcosm of people searching for something better or more enlightened than what they have—a reprieve, however ephemeral.
Does this hour and a half flow into the rest of our days and soften the edges of the “ongoing unpredictable maelstrom lurking around every corner?”
I, for one, have never trusted happiness, which I consider brief moments of elation and elevated calm amidst the “ongoing unpredictable maelstrom” that constantly derails our normal existence, a bugaboo which we fight, for the battle against unhappiness might be a greater ambition than the pursuit of happiness, even if we are not aware of it.
Yoga is certainly the pursuit of happiness, more so than the battle against unhappiness, and possibly one of the more heroic battles in our culture. It is populated by people who have thought about their lives and the world, it seems to me, who have read books and traveled and achieved sophistication a notch above the debilitating pedestrian dedication to work and money and things and family security that comprise the so-called American dream.
My battles with unhappiness, profound disappointment and I suppose depression were, over a period of years, fought with mountainous boozing, drugs, womanizing, and turning myself into a sort of entertainment life-of-the-party-always-on-stage buffoon bartender in the crazy organ-hounding grab bag of Manhattan Beach in the 1980s. There was no time to think about this siege against unhappiness and psychological pain engendered by the thwarting of a youthful dream. But eventually it precipitated an even deeper misery and I escaped just in time to salvage my health.
Looking back, I have never been happier and wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Plummeting into the ultimate escape hatch, exulting in the debauched hedonistic life, seeking guiltless intoxication and titillation at every turn is, to me, the pinnacle of happiness and over-shadows yoga like Mount Everest. Without it, at that time in my life, I would have perished.
.
But today I will take yoga. I am thankful for it, as it seems to alleviate just about every physical malady confronting me at this stage of my life; a salvation while not a miracle, certainly a greatly appreciated replacement for hitting the winning basket and feeling that ultimate buzz of victory.
Still, I wait for yoga to give me the courage to trust happiness and go beyond.