h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sitting here i Århus, the second largest city in Denmark. Having the use of a colleague's flat with an internet connection. W*rking desperately to accomodate a paper's deadline.

My colleague is in Copenhagen, and luckily his daughter, the guardian of the second set of keys, lives not too far away from the main station.

Not that I really care about the articles. The content is important enough - in my eyes - but it doesn't matter whether it is written now or next week.

But because my articles are needed to fill up the paper, I sit here in an unknown appartment in the middle of the city listening to seagulls scream, kids talk and the cultural festival week go by.

For the information of the people who don't know, I'm an abuser of alcohol, an alcoholic if you like that better. In my mind there is a distinction - but I fear that in my family's mind the distinction is of no importance.

I'm in a foul mood. I like to think that I drink to become happier. And I do - for a while - and then, like all alcoholics, I cry. I guess each of us have a special item/subject to cry about.

All my journals have been written when I've been drinking, and when I thought I had something to give or ask for.

Most of the time I don't drink. I'm too old, I hurt my family, nothing good comes out of drinking - well except a smile sometimes.

I love life. I think it is a duty to be happy and contribute - without getting repaid - or whatever it is called.

Most males in my life - husband, son, late dad and some friends - are very eager to point out to me that life is a misery (my interpretation ) and 'a pessimist is a well-informed optimist'.

I refuse to agree. I love sunshine, bird's song, tall grass, imagerian language, good books, intriguing paintings, difficult music - and sentimentality. Since I've grown old I'm really a sucker for a good cry.

Don't tell the women in my 'liberation group', or the people in the socialistic societies.

I'm as firm and steadfast in my gender-related and political views as I've always been.

Hopefully I have not robbed anybody of their beliefs.

Thanks for listening.

Keep on feeling life to the full. There's a lot out there to be appreciated.
Having a good can be a therapeutic release for all sorts of things.

I wonder if the duty to be happy puts another load on your shoulders?

Do what you need to do.

And there are many things to be happy about - as you rightly say! When you remember them, be happy.

Which of course does not cancel out the things you need to be sad about... Be sad when you need to, and don't be ashamed of sadness. And when you're done, release it and move on.

I find that when I don't allow myself sadness, happiness too escapes me. When I don't allow anger, kindness goes away.

* to make an appointment with a councellor about my things...*

Oh, there's so many things I'd like to say now.

"a duty to be happy and contribute - without getting repaid"
Do you really think it's a duty? I myself would rather think that I *want* to be happy and contribute without expecting anything in return.

I guess I am lucky to have someone to tell me that the world may be much brighter than I see it. That helps a big deal. Though on some down days it may also feel that I can't live up their expectations. Expectations are a slippery road anyway.

Good cry and being sentimental. Well, that is good indeed. Makes life way more colourful, methinks. And you really don't need to drink to get there, do you? What I have found out of first hand experience is that drinking mostly causes a whole lot of feeling guilty and that spoils all the fun.

Count your blessings, Tartaronne. There's a whole load for you because in all of us you can see the reflection of yourself and you radiate so much of all kind of goodness.

This is a beautifully written and poignant journal.

It reminds me of the song that says, "when I drink alone, I like to be by myself."

I don't drink that much anymore either except on those rare occasions when I am not with family. At those times I also become a serious abuser of hard liquor for days on end.

Good luck with the deadline.

Thank you all for your kind response.

Especially Hati who doesn't hide her level-headed and - as it is - harsh - response. I didn't expect anything else from you.

>>Do you really think it's a duty? I myself would rather think that I *want* to be happy and contribute without expecting anything in return.<<

No, you're right. I don't think it is a duty. It comes and should come natural. It's just when I feel all guilty about drinking, I cannot be spontaneous - and have to hide behind clever words.

.. life has nothing to do with a "duty to be happy" there is a .. "convention?" to contribute, not without being repaid one way or another.

I heard there have been people contributing without hoping to be repaid. I think that all ended almost two thousand years ago, painful, there's still a lot of fighting over it, and in the long run a lot of people paid dearly for it. The lesson from that is "Don't contribute without hope for repayment" unless you're prepared to start a new religion.

being repaid? .. mm something like waking up next to someone close (*even if that someone shuffles in from the cold after a smoke on the veranda, has cold feet and cold hands and worse.. is some sort of repayment *) If that doesn't work there's sunshine, tall grass, ...

life cannot be all misery there's too many good things in life for that so many things to be happy about .. without duty

and then I didn't even start on reasons to be Hapi but that's something just for me

Milla, I think that my biggest problem is that I cannot be angry when I'm 'normal'. And I don't allow sadness or emotions which I find 'wrong': Jealousy, greed, egotism, anger, hopelesness etc.....

...actually very poignant for abusers of any kind of substance or game, the very good female psychologist in the public treatment revealed. . (should that be a before e?)

Hapi - you're one of a kind.

Teuchter - >>I wonder if the duty to be happy puts another load on your shoulders?<<

It does. Doesn't it? Yes.

Ah... Well.

I believe that one just *has* those feelings. But if you don't allow yourself to admit that you have them, you might start to feel mixed up.

The difference is perhaps if you *act* on them or not - I too believe that you should not act out of anger, jealousy etc. Someone said that it *isn't* the thought that counts, it's the actions! (originally in reference to when you buy someone a cr*ppy gift with the excuse that the thought counts..., but it applies to almost any situation)

And currently I have to admit to being sad and angry, but I try very very hard to be polite and kind and understanding anyway.

Are you seeing someone to get support? This very good female psychologist perhaps?

Actually I'm not seeing someone, and maybe I should.

I'm in sole responsibillity for my demented mother, I take it upon me to make members of my family understand each other's actions and motives for same.

Well, why not . They all blame me for being a good/bad mother/wife/daughter/person and figure, I should fix their problems with each other. And I like a good older sister and well groomed female do just that.

I love all the traditions and fittings at x-mas time. But ask me two days after, and I'm up to a nauseating point on the recieving end of what I did wrong with my kids/husband/brother/mother. (and should that be e before i?)

Sorry, sometimes it is so very good to laugh about my hangs ups. (and surely there are too many s'es there )

I can't keep myself quoting one of my favourite books here.

"But do not call any emotion petty, any emotion unworthy. Every one is good, very good, even hatred, even envy, even jealousy, even cruelty. All we live on are our poor, lovely, glorious feelings, and each one we wrong is a star we have extinguished."

Klingsor's Last Summer
Hermann Hesse

well yes .. I would be dead by now if I couldn't handle sadness, jealousy, greed, anger, hopelesness etc..... they're all good one way or another as long as they're genuine

and egotism?? hey.. ask a hippo about that

That's so true, Hati.

If we were "level" in our emotions all the time, life would be very boring.
We need the contrast of the lows in order to appreciate the highs.

I don't think it's wrong to have any of these feelings. They are what they are.

What you're saying about Christmas, tartaronne - every year I wish I could dig a hole and climb into it for a fortnight

What can I say, really? So much experience in life shared.

I gooble it up (?) =(Consume it with great pleasure and afterthought - if that is the English word?)

Now three storeyes down somebody is practising his/her guitar. The cultural week is on her way.

You seem to always read apt books, Hati. Some day I'll quote my detective novels.

I honestly think I'd have a drink problem if it didn't affect me so badly. Thank God for IBS and hangovers. During the week I'm dry, but I drink moderately on Friday and Saturday. Sunday is spent gradually recovering.

I don't know what makes people become alcoholics. My father was an alcoholic, and his father before him, and probably his father as well. Luckily it has stopped with me.

I think this song, one of the most heartfelt, poignant and melodically complex ballads ever sung, sums up the 'positive' aspects of being an alcoholic:

http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=184

Reading. Don't know what to say.

I suspect that the path to happiness will be as individual as each of us. But I don't think being happy should be an obligation or a burden. I have a horrible time expressing my emotions. Any emotions, including joy. I seem stuck in neutral. I've been like this for so long that everyone expects it now. And that is my burden. I haven't had a good cry in years. It would be a blessed relief, but I simply can't manage it. I did get angry at work a couple of weeks ago and yelled at a staff member. 12 years at this job and the first time I've yelled at amyone. It was so out of character that she was absolutely devastated and cried for the rest of the day. Then I felt like scum and decided maybe there were worse things than being in neutral.

As to the alcohol, I also have some rather unpleasant physical reactions, especially to whisky, so have to keep it to a minimum. There are alcoholics in my family and I was always a little afraid of it.

Contentment I undersatand. I can do contentment. Happiness I'm not so sure about.

Mister Piano Thief, I followed your link but was not sure what to do with what, where and when?

Hyp, we are a couple of years and a continent apart. Still, I think we have similar experiences as humans, but are somewhat divided by cultural expectations.

Like I feel about Hati. I know she has strong emotions about her country's culture. Much stronger than I feel about mine. My culture has been 'legitimate' for hundreds and hundreds of years. Hati's has been for approx 25 years.

And aren't Estonians really good musicians, Hati? It seems like it.

We do have some good musicians. As any other nation. But what is true is that we are known to never miss a chance for singing. I wouldn't know, I can't sing.

As about nationality, nationalism and all that stuff. My world is so little and seems to differ a big deal from anglo-american world, so it's very interesting to learn about all things out there. To some limits, knowing doesn't mean assimilation.
The other day I learnt an article about state, country. There are two major approaches to what makes a state - ethnos and politics. Most of the old countries (well, more than 100 years anyway) are seeing their country as something based on poliics, while Estonia and other new independencies define themselves first by nationality as there has never been much of a reliable or own politics behind the state.

Most of the time I read crime novels anyway.