Are you happy?

The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Director: Clint Eastwood

With all the hype surrounding finding the perfect love and that love is forever with persuasions like 'listen to your heart' and 'you'll know when the right one comes along', this one is a wet blanket.

This film may be one of the best love stories ever made, not because it was directed by one of Hollywood's best directors but because it deals with a mature theme. Is the whole idea of marriage to complete the cycle of childbearing and childrearing as well as dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's to ensure the institution of marriage continues unhinged, to pass the baton to generations next or is it to savour all the senses that complete a human being?

Is sex a privilege accorded only between a society-sanctioned couple and not with anybody else? Is it true that some people are just not wired to stay monogamous, or is it just an excuse to play truant, to savour the forbidden fruit?

Did society criminalise extramarital sex to give a face to paternity before a time when paternity testing was mainstream? At a time when most sexually transmitted infections were viewed as God's wrath on fornicators and adulterers and antibiotics were not discussed, it does not make sense for little children to run around without their mothers. What contraception? Coitus is a divine act sanctioned for procreation and nothing else, say the Judeo-Christian traditions. Now that our contraceptive options have improved, is this still applicable? 

Detractors of the above will cite the emotional (or lack of) reasons for keeping everything within the family unit, the good, bad, warts and all. Sex is just one component of married life. There are more experiences to achieve in this union called matrimony. 

This film gently deals with this touchy topic without condescending thoughts or resolution. It is what it is. We just have to deal with it.

Two siblings return to their farmhouse to have their mother's will read. They are shocked that her mother wants her remains to be cremated and ashes scattered over a bridge nearby. The children are puzzled as the family already has a cemetery plot. Looking through her journals, the children get access to the mother's well-kept secret. The mother, Francesca, was a war bride when she met her love in Italy at the tail end of WW2. Excited about the idea of marrying an America and migrating to the USA, her hopes are dashed when she is stuck in Iowa, on a farm where nothing happened - no neon lights, no Disneyland. In the summer of 1965, when Francesca's husband and her two teenage kids were away attending a fair over four days, she had a brief affair with a National Geographic photographer. Francesca lived the rest of her married life in memory of those four days, still performing her motherly and wifely duties.

In the spring of youth, with raging hormones, we plunge into relationships. Soon the magic died out. The ember of passion fizzles out. We reach a crossroads - to cave in to bodily needs or to look at the whole exercise as a higher calling and persevere.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Follo

What really makes us happy?

Happy! (Season 1; 2017)

What actually makes us happy? It seems that from time immemorial, we go around looking for that unattainable wish. Happiness, Bliss, Utopia, Eudaimonia, we refer to it with different names. What we actually yearn for a state of mind oblivious to things that happen around us and one that puts us in a state not wondering what tomorrow may bring and whether we will be left out from it. We want to feel, experience, the wonder of our brain immersed in the feel-good chemicals, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. The question why this drowning is self-limiting, numbs itself spontaneously with tolerance setting in. We need ever more of the same for the desired effect. We are still in search of true happiness if there is one. In the meantime, we divert our attention to other paths and convince ourselves that that indeed is happiness even though most do not buy it!

We create stories. We tell ourselves that the Law of Nature is just. Somehow happiness is portrayed as a wrong virtue. We should suffer in pain in that therein lies true happiness. Enduring pain (the antithesis of joy) is looked upon as a respected virtue which would be repaid in many folds in another realm. The mortals are left confused, scratching their heads wondering which part to follow. Like Sisyphus, we are told to find happiness within the gruelling continual rolling of the boulder uphill which repeatedly rolls back when we thought the peak is reached and our job is over. In that mad cycle of torture and disappointment, we are expected to find peace.

We threaten our kinds that happiness is indeed not to be experienced here on Earth but in the afterlife. Is it just a pacifier to thumb people down to submission and subjugation.

A simplistic formula to happiness. We try to
convince ourselves that indeed it is. Deep
inside we know but, with the dearth of any
other suggestions, we persevere.
We call this cognitive dissonance.

'Happy!' is anything but a happy story. It tells of a 'down-and-out' disgraced cop who is now a hitman. He is a walking zombie after suffering a massive heart attack. He sees an apparition of a talking blue unicorn who tells him of his child (which the cop is unaware) who has been kidnapped. The cartoonish looking flying unicorn is his daughter's imaginary friend who appears in his consciousness. Together they have to tract the site she is kidnapped against the mob who is out for his blood and the deranged man who is up to something no good with the children he has kidnapped. Then there are the kidnapped girl's mother and the cop's ex-partner who are all engrossed in their sorrows.

The cop finds happiness in intoxicants; the mother finds it in her child; the madman in the weird things he does; the mob in exerting authority; the ex-cop's partner and caring for her mother; the mother with her anti-depressive medications and the mob's family find solace in reality TV. The miniseries indeed show a rather weird world that we live in.

The problem with looking for happiness is that it is not a finite destination. The goal post always keeps shifting. We work hard towards a goal thinking that by achieving it, we will be happy. Unfortunately, when our desire is reached, we find no happiness. Conversely, we find a higher bar to reach and the vicious cycle continues.

Maybe we are looking for contentment in all the wrong places. This seemingly attainable feat may just lie within us but in the outside. Like Saint Nicholas who find joy in giving presents at Christmas, we should do the same. Incidentally, this season is set around the Yuletide with the message of giving screaming all over the set. And whats more, the main character's name is Nick Sachs! Christopher Leoni of 'Law and Order: SVU' fame stars.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A day in the life of..

Happy Days here to stay?

They say it is the latest happening place in town. With the U.S. 1950s rock and roll theme, flashy photos of automobiles of yesteryear and matinee idols of that era plastered on the wall and equally striking paint work, it gave the impression of a bugle call for the hipsters, the young, the nouve riche and the like. Welcome to the love child of capitalism, unabated vulgar consumerism. Sure, they like the calories filled cholesterol laden jumbo sized servings, they also like the personalised wishes that we cheerily call out as they enter or leave the premises. Some say that our frequent breaking into songs and dance routines is annoyance but I do not see anyone complaining! They even seem to swing about, sing along and even dance a step or two with us in tandem.

Given a choice, I would like to have that mandatory dance performance struck off my numerous lists of duties. The old injury that I inherited enroute to the maternity shed back home in Cebu is acting funny again. Yes, I am an immigrant Pinoy worker who left my 2 toddler kids and a drunkard husband behind to try my fortune in this plush land of plenty. Fortune aplenty I did lose trying to pay off the scavenging middlemen and corrupt officials before even before landing here. Just like many new graduates here, I became a pauper and in debt even I started earn anything at all. I am here because nobody here wants to do the job I am doing here. They cannot take the pressure of listening to the whims and fancies of the little Emperors whom I have to entertain on a daily basis. I guess I can and have to take their whining and eat humble pie as they are the haves and I, have not!

Life goes on as they say, in sorrow or in joy. I do look forward to those Sunday mornings when I pay my dues to the Divine for all the little naughty unsanctioned things I do over the weekday. A little dishonesty here and a little there, I am hoping to start a new slate come Monday. New leaf? Maybe later! Morality does not bring the bacon to table!