“Excited About the Apocalypse”: Happiness, Fate, and the Quest of Life

Below is a poignant excerpt from New York Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson’s book, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

*Note: The Mrs. Winterson mentioned below is Jeanette’s mother.

Still I was excited about the Apocalypse because Mrs. Winterson made it exciting, but I secretly hoped that life would go on until I could be grown up and find out more about it.

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But as I try and understand how life works – and why some people cope better than others with adversity – I come back to something to do with saying yes to life, which is love of life, however inadequate, and love for the self, however found. Not in the me-first way that is the opposite of life and love, but with a salmon-like determination to swim upstream, however choppy upstream is, because this is your stream…

Although I’d love to include the entire excerpt (about a page-and a-half), copyright laws and respect for this author prohibit me from sharing too much. So I highly recommend reading the book in its entirety.

But to paraphrase the rest, Winterson continues discussing the paradox of happiness in a way I’ve done here at BRAINWASH before.  

There is a profound difference between the pleasure kind of happiness (think: things that satisfy the ego’s need for gratification) and what Winterson calls a more “elusive” type of happiness.

This is a more humble, modest, and subtle kind of happiness. It is a less goal-oriented, but still lifelong, endeavor. Something I’ve described here before as a lifetime of discovery.  Something more than just the ego and pleasure.

After all, those ego-inspired kind of happy times are fleeting by design. Nonetheless, Winterson says, “If the sun is shining, stand in it – yes, yes, yes.”

By all means, live in that moment and be happy. Before it slips away.

Knowing that this kind of happiness has, and will always have, a quick turnaround time. More evanescent than the life of a mayfly. Which is why the chase or pursuit of happiness is more important than all our ephemeral addictions.

This idea is illustrated quite well in this snippet of Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine:

Sunsets we always liked because they only happen once and go away."

"But, Lena, that's sad."

"No, if the sunset stayed and we got bored, that would be a real sadness.

So chase your dreams like you chase those sunsets.

Just pay attention to all that energy invested in that uphill journey to the peak of the summit for the best view of that sunset – and all the interconnected bits of purpose and meaning you stumble into along the way…

Because all that, that’s another kind of happiness altogether. It’s an organic evolution of the self. And a lifetime of unexpected twists and turns, sorrows and tragedies, growth and transformation.

Winterson sums it up best when she says, “The pursuit isn’t all or nothing – it’s all AND nothing. Like all quest stories.”

So, where will your quest take you today?

You can’t know for sure, and that’s part of the point. You can make all the goals and plans you want. And you can, and should, find happiness in achieving them. 

But it’s often what happens unexpectedly in between all that goal setting, rule following, and regular-life-living that thrusts us out of our comfort zones and into uncharted territory (read also: where most of the magic happens).

Fate, luck, and chance encounters impact your potential for happiness as much as everything else.

And, contrary to what we were told as little kids, the possibilities aren’t infinite – realistically, there may be some limitations to what we can do. The trick is knowing how to improvise and learning how to innovate accordingly.

But simply accepting the hand you’ve been dealt is the first step you need to get from where you are to where you want to go. 

You can follow a clear path, or carve a brand new one. But if you walk in a straight line long enough, you’ll only end up where you were.

 And, at that point, you might as well be waiting for the Apocalypse.