Melancholy > Happiness

"I am not a happy person. There are things that do make me experience joy. But joy is a fleeting emotion, like a very long sneeze. A lot of the time what I feel is, interested. Or I feel melancholy. And I also frequently feel tenderness, annoyance, confusion, fear, hopelessness. It doesn't all add up to anything I would call happiness. But what I'm thinking is, is that so terrible?

...Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people who are not happy by nature. Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested, instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy."

THIS IS HOW by Augusten Burroughs  

No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
― Martha Graham 


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The irony is that I happen to be posting this on a day, at a time of my life when I feel more "happy" than not.  I guess that's why I'm thinking about it.  Because what I've posted above pertains to me so specifically that when I am in a longer "happy" phase, it feels foreign.  I know how fleeting it is.  I can't relax into it too much.    

I also feel great comfort in the above.  It's me! I've just never known how to put it into words before.  And it let's me know that how I am and how I feel is OK.  

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