…..the head shrinker asked me if I was happy, but what frame of reference exists to reliably answer a question like that? Seriously. None that I know of. The issue of happiness is so visceral, so subjective, so contextual…..that one can go through an entire life without ever knowing whether you were truly happy or truly miserable or, more likely, residing at some point falling between those two extremes until many years—decades—have passed and you can then look back with a degree of objectivity. You always have a rough idea of how you are feeling inside at any given moment in time but that idea is impossible to quantify with any semblance of accuracy. You may as well be throwing darts in the dark at a target situated fifty yards away. We’re talking nothing but guesstimates here. But this train of thought gets worse, however implausible the thought of that may be: You have NO inkling how someone else might be feeling—irrespective of how close or even intimate you may feel your relationship with that individual is—and, what’s more, you will never be privy to vital information such as that which might appreciably advance your own happiness and emotional well-being. If you are an even-keeled person and grossly unsure of your own level of rapture, how then would someone else similarly normal be able to measure theirs any more reliably?…..
Fred's Soapbox 