The Pursuit of Happiness

You know the feeling when you just can't stop smiling? Smiling from ear to ear, it eventually starts to hurt your cheeks. It's not the kind of smile that comes from a good joke or from an evening out, it's a smile that comes when your mind is blissful, full of an unmentionable joy. It bubbles up from inside and the feeling is eerie, almost spiritual. Perhaps you have felt this kind of joy when you first learned to bike, or when your child laughs for the first time, or on your wedding day. This is the kind of feeling I had last week.

This smile comes from an unexpected source. Taking part in a singing competition means that, at some point, all singers are camped out in a hotel for a few days while shooting the next episodes. When you push a group of people for a couple of days and then give them the day off, one of two things will happen. Either this group of singers will go to the hotel, eat a filling meal and go to bed, or they will go to a karaoke bar and sing their heart, frustration and tension out. If the group of singers would go to a karaoke bar and sing their heart, frustration and tension out, they would most definitely choose the most cheesy karaoke bar in town. Something like CocoLoco sounds about right. By the time they hit the karaoke bar, everyone would be laughing and smiling, exhausted, tired and happy.

I give you CocoLoco

One of the singers would choose Whitney Houston's classic I Wanna Dance With Somebody and oh how everyone would dance.

Clock strikes upon the hour

And the sun begins to fade

Still enough time to figure out

How to chase my blues away

Hypothetically, if I had been at CocoLoco that evening, I would have watched my fellow competitors singing along to the tunes, moving in perfect beat to the addictive tune. A random couple would join in on the dance floor, also smiling. It would be one of those perfect moments that only lasts a minute, but stays with you a lifetime.

Trying to take a wedding photo until my brother shouts "look at that squirrel".
Happiness caught on camera.

This same kind of happiness I have also found sitting alone on a beach and riding the tram to work, in hours of distress as much as in hours of joy, alone as well as in good company, at home as strongly as abroad. It comes unexpectedly and without any prior notice, bubbles up from somewhere deep inside. A calm sense of perfection.

Something you are not aware of is that I've been writing and rewriting this post about a dozen times. Why? Because this is one of the hardest topics I've ever written about. Confusion strikes and it is tearing a whole in my soul not to be able to give even the slightest of insight. The more I think about it and the more I analyze it, the more complicated it seems, the further I get from any simple explanation. This is even more confusing as happiness in itself is quite a simple matter. Perhaps even more simple than I could have imagined. Here it goes (and mind you, this is not even slightly my field):

The ancient Greeks, as is the case with oh so many things, were among the first to explore how our emotional responses are linked to our physical body. The theories of the Greeks were dismissed to a large extent, but during the 21st century this link has, again, seen the light of day. In the field of neuroscience, quote, happiness - like every other emotional experience - is the result of electrochemical reactions in the brain brought on by stimuli. All of this is based on a hypothesis by this guy called Francis Crick that "you, your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated neurons". For more on that, check this out.

Neurons or not, Holi festival in India was all about happiness

I won't even pretend to understand half of that, but I do understand that, by this, our personality is simply a sum of a lot of shit that happens in our brains. Unfortunately, that doesn't help at all. It still doesn't offer an explanation as to what triggers the feeling of happiness. Still puzzled, I turn to find what others, people older, smarter and wiser than me, have said about the matter. I find one simple quote that sort of blows me away

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. - Albert Camus

I've never even heard about this wise man, Albert Camus (yes I googled him and he was a French writer and philosopher), but it sounds like he knows his shit. If you don't buy that, there's always the other possibility, offered by the Beatles

When I hold you in my arms (oh yes)

When I feel my finger on your trigger (oh yes)

I know nobody can do me harm

Because

Happiness is a warm gun, momma

Happiness is a warm gun

Can't really argue with the Beatles, now can you! 

One theme I did find plowing through quotes about happiness is that happiness only comes with the risk of being unhappy. Jonathan Safran Foer said: you cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness. I guess it's true, when you are the happiest, you are also the most vulnerable to pain. Continuing this thought, Lauren Oliver wrote: you can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes. Congratulations, we have ourselves the most magnificent paradox of them all. It seems as if we can only be happy if we are also sad, protecting ourselves from sadness only resulting in less happiness. Does that mean that the crappier I feel one day, the happier I'll feel the next? Time for the big guns.

Happiness depends upon ourselves. - Aristoteles

Now that just clears everything up, doesn't it. Thanks, dead dude with white beard from 300 BC, that really helps. I guess dead dude with white beard does have a point, though. What makes me happy might not matter to you, so happiness derives from differing sources. The problem, however, is still as evident as ever, and yes Albert Camus, I'm still searching for a recipe for happiness. In fact, what I'm looking for is some sort of connection. If happiness can derive from any number of places, feelings, situations, or whatever it may be, what is the connective factor? Is there even one? It is contentment? Peace with oneself? Feeling of achievement?

Happiness can be present even in the simplest of situations. Often unexplainable it's in the moment.

Frustrated as ever, pulling my hair and screaming at the walls, suddenly it hits me. I've already said it. Happiness, it's one of those perfect moments that only lasts a minute, but stays with you a lifetime. That's exactly what it is. And just as our old pal Albert says, when you're busy searching for happiness, those moments will just fly by unnoticed. It doesn't really matter where those moments come from, what matter is that we acknowledge them and, even more importantly, enjoy them. Last, also dead dude with white beard is correct. Happiness derives from so many places, but always from within us. The origin of happiness is not in the world, but in us, and so happiness does depend upon ourselves.

This explanation has nothing to do with science, and if you ask me, happiness has nothing to do with science. They say that the Devil is in the detail (or originally that God is in the detail, but we don't care about that in this post), but I say happiness in the detail. Usually it is the smallest of things that sparks this feeling and that's why detail is important. So perhaps the pursuit of happiness is in vain, for happiness is already here, in the details and the small moments around us. We just have to pay attention and let the details do their work.

Happiness, it lies in those perfect moments that lasts only a minute, but stays with you a lifetime.
- Cecilia

I'm Just A Dreamer

Heart beating, shirt sticking to my cold sweating body, soon it'll be my turn. Someone tells me to breath, to take a deep breath and just dive in to the song and let the song tell the story. Easy for you to say, the spotlight isn't on you, dear. Someone shoves a mike in my hand and gives me a gentle push towards the stage. The crowd is silent, it's now or never.


Bob Marley once said "one good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain". Bobby was right, but also wrong. Sometimes music does inflict pain. Or joy. Or love. Or any number of feelings. Sometimes, music makes you feel so much it hurts. That's why I love music. For me, as a person that lives life more based on feelings then on rationale, music is the ultimate fountain of feelings. It's a way to ventilate all the good and the bad both in and out of your system.

Someone asked me what music means to me. On one hand, this is a very simple questions with a very simple answer: everything. On the other hand, it's the trickiest question of them all. How can I explain that music is like the air I breath, the rain after a drought, the spring sun after a cold winter, the first snowfall after a gray and dark autumn, like the best of wines combined with the best of foods enjoyed with the best of friends. It is pure joy. Music is like a love story, a bitter sweet one. Passionate and lustful, it eases me into a state of trust and devotion. It lures me into the deepest of satisfactions, yet always reminding me that we can never truly be together. Reminding me that I am not worthy. Until perhaps now.


Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo


It all started when I was a kid. Like any other kid, I'd pick up my moms hairbrush and sing in it like it was a microphone, stand in front of the mirror, waggling my hips to the beat of an imaginative beat, performing to an imaginative audience who was imaginatively chanting my name like a choir. I decided I was going to be a rock star. This was the only profession I could imagine. So I studied music for many years, until I graduated from high school and life's realities struck down on me. I went abroad, I studied, I worked and I buried my dream deep deep down inside of me. I closed the lid on it so tightly, I almost forgot the damn thing. But then you can't really forget your dreams, because without dreams, what do you really have left?


Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche


About a year ago, I started practicing music again. After almost ten years off the stage, I did a show at my local pub and it was magical. At least for me, couldn't say about the audience. As I sang the songs on stage, I carefully took the off lid and, believe it or not, in that little jar I found my dream was still intact. A little older and perhaps a little rough around the edges, there it was exactly where I had left it. Thus, I decided to pick up my fragile little dream and see how far my wings would carry. I wanted to be a rock star. Again.


Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. - Frank Zappa


This is how we get back to my beating heart and cold sweating body. My little dream needed a lot of work. I might add that during those years in that jar, my dream had become a little more humble than "rock star". Making a living out of music would really be enough. Just as a banker goes to work at the office in the morning, or a teacher prepares class, or a clerk tends to the shop, so did I too want to spend my days working with music. That is why I decided to take part in a competition.

I sent in an audio sample and next thing you know, I was called in to an audition. The cut was clean and simple: sing to us and we'll tell you if you got through or not. I stood waiting for the verdict with my friend. Here we go, they would call out the names of the ones that had made the cut. I hear someone say Cecilia. Cecilia? Well that's me! I see my friends red locks of hair dance in front of me as she is jumping up and down, screaming in my ear as I stand completely still, acting all super awesome and cool. Probably failing in the most embarrassing of ways. I was a step closer to my dream, my wings had carried me through my first jump.

This brings us to Friday. Two days from now, my fate will again be decided by someone else, this time by four music moguls. They will decide whether my wings will carry me closer to my dream, or if I will fall flat on my face. It's that leap of faith that everyone keeps talking about, it's happening. It's scary, it's fun and it's necessary. It's my life and, most of all, it is my dream.


Heart beating, shirt sticking to my cold sweating body. The lights feel warm on my face, my head is filled with a slight buzzing and the sound of my beating heart. The band plays the first riff of the song. The crowd is silent, it's now or never.