Happiness and anxiety.

I know what follows is painfully obvious, especially if you've already gone through those kind of ideas in your head over and over again. I apologise unreservedly in advance.

Regardless of my previous rant on university and the culture surrounding it, I have come to a shocking conclusion: a lot of what I have learnt, has happened because of university. Sadly most of that is not about Creative Writing, it is the cliched "life lessons" that have come most in useful.

I used to be sure about things. I used to know a lot more than I did. Almost invariably I have learned that most of the things I knew were just gross generalisations and tired psuedo beliefs that were passed onto me without my real knowledge. It's very easy to listen to someone who sounds like they know what they are talking about and assume that they are right. But in reality, they are only speaking from their personal experiences, so whatever I assumed as "right" is just what I was told by people who I thought were a decent authority on the matter.

Understanding this depressed me. Because it's kind of nice to think of things as being one thing, as there being one reality in which there is one way to do things, and they will either be right or worng. Kind of like computers games. You learn how to do it, and then you do it, and you complete it, and you move on.

I wish life was like that.

I wish it was like the Sims, where I would sit down for 36hours with a piano, and at the end I would have gone from pathetic beginner to Mozart 2.0. That'd be good. I'd like that. I'd like that my relationships with people could be as easily manipulated as just throwing in a nonsensical joke, a quick hug and a nonchalant conversation regarding the weather and they'd be ready to take a bullet for me. That'd be good too.

I came to the conclusion quite a while ago that I had been far too lucky. Years ago, as I recall, when I had been feeling typically depressively emo (for the time, this was often) and I began to ask myself (and I know it was childish) why I hadn't been blessed with a brilliant muscular body, or chiselled good looks, or perfectly straight hair cascading gently over my face. It wasn't fair, I reasoned. Who decided? Who decided I wasn't allowed to be all these things.

Epiphany is a strong word, and wildly innacurate here.

I realised that I didnt have these things, and yes, I didn't have any great level of charisma, genius level intelligence or wit, either. But I realised I had already been lucky enough. Considering that I could have been born a peasant in the 15th century, or as an orphan with AIDS in Africa, or even just as a victim of child abuse or something as simple as bullying. I got pretty lucky to be honest, I didnt get any of those things.

So I forego any right to complain. Nevertheless, I still complain, I still worry. I still feel sad, sometimes. But two primary emotions fill my life at the moment.
Happiness; for a variety of reasons, some obvious, others not.
and
Anxiety; for two primary reasons, both of which will be over soon, and countless other minor reasons.

I think anxiety has pretty much replaced all the other negative emotions. I just worry about things now, I dont usually feel sad, or lonely, or angry, or scared. I just worry.
But then when I really think about it, the things that I'm actually worried about, are the things that make me happy in the first place.

I know.
Boring.