I have discovered the secret to happiness. Yes, people have spent their entire lives searching for the key to eternal bliss. Charlatans have written books on how to be happy. Religious dudes say you'll be happy after you're dead…if you're good. Politicians claim they can make you happy if you vote for them. Hollywood makes you feel like a freak if you're not happy.
The real secret, though, is nefarious in its simplicity. I can sum up the source of eternal glee in one word. Granted, that one word has an above average number of syllables (FOUR of them), but it's one that anyone can remember. It's one that will strike a chord deep inside everyone who reads it. Everybody knows the word, even the people it applies to.
But before I go into that, let me remind everyone that my birthday is coming up! That's right, the big 2-7. Egad, age is creeping up on me. Just in case anybody is in the gift market, though, I could really use a couple of exercise wheels for my tarantulas, some sharkskin bikini briefs, and a hot chick of my very own. Everyone else will swelter in the eternal fires of hell.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the secret of happiness. What is it?
STUPIDITY!
NO, I'm NOT being cynical, either. It's true. The dumber someone is, the happier they are. Actually, it's not stupidity per se that's the issue. It's the gleeful willingness to extinguish the flame of cognitive thought and immerse oneself in a fantasy world of pixie dust and rabbits who can talk. "Stupidity" is just a much simpler way of saying it. Of course, if you lack the ability for cognitive thought in the first place, the so much the better.
Let's face facts, kiddies. The world is a brutal place from top to bottom, in spite of the hippies who believe in all of that happiness and light crap, the idealists who actually believe they can make everyone happy, and the fringe pseudoreligious people who attribute everything to some divine plan without one iota of that pesky thing called evidence. Most of these people are smart enough, but they lock away any part of their brain that says "gee whiz, maybe the world is a little more complicated than we think." But then, if they BOTHERED to consider that the world might be a predatory, random, naturally destructive place, that might infringe upon their happiness.
People are so silly. They go and immerse themselves in some half-assed escapist philosophy, drink themselves into a stupor, or take up hobbies like basket weaving all in an attempt to shut off that quiet nagging doubt that they don't have all the answers. Heck, even those people who turn all Goth and claim to embrace all that dark side crap are doing the same thing, only they're masochists and are making themselves happy in a backdoor kind of way. God forbid anything should disrupt the happy little shell of artificial absolute truth that they created around themselves.
That's why I can't help but look at retarded people with a certain amount of envy. THEY sure seem happy. If anything makes them unhappy, they forget it pretty quickly. Sure, it sucks to be developmentally impaired, but isn't that worth trading off for a life of happiness? Would you be willing to have yourself lobotomized in order to attain a state of bliss for the rest of your life? Heck, most people do that to themselves by shutting off their brains. I wish I could. Damn my brain.
The upshot of all this is that I've thought of a wonderful new insult. I can just call someone "happy." I can walk up to someone and say, "You know, you're the happiest person I know." They'll say something like, "Gee, thanks," not knowing that I really meant that they were mind-bogglingly stupid.
And all this is true. If you don't believe it, then I guess you're just too happy.
