Can you be happy with the movies, and the ads, and the clothes in the stores, and the doctors, and the eyes as you walk down the street all telling you there is something wrong with you? No. You cannot be happy. Because, you poor darling baby, you believe them.
Interpretation
True happiness cannot exist when one is constantly bombarded by negative messages about themselves.
This quote emphasizes the detrimental impact of external influences, such as media and societal expectations, on an individual's sense of happiness and self-worth. Katherine Dunn suggests that when people internalize these negative messages and allow them to affect their self-perception, achieving genuine happiness becomes impossible.
In practice
In a mental health awareness seminar to discuss the impact of media on self-esteem.
We live with a distinct double standard about male and female aggression. Women's aggression isn't considered real. It isn't dangerous; it's only cute. Or it's always self-defense or otherwise inspired by a man. In the rare case where a woman is seen as genuinely responsible, she is branded a monster - an 'unnatural' woman.
Boxing gyms are more than training facilities. They are sanctuaries in bad neighborhoods for troubled kids and shrines to the traditions of the sport. The gym is home. For many, it's the safest place they know.
Women are real. Our reality covers the whole human megillah, from feeble to fierce, from bad to good, from endangered to dangerous. We don't just deserve power, we have it. And power in this and every other society is not just the capacity to benefit those around us.
People ask me a lot, 'How can you smile all the time?' I tell them, 'I was never angry. God created me this way. He created me laughing and smiling.'
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available - more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more.
As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.
Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.
The whole idea of music, from the beginning of time, was for people to be happy
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