Why I am Happy?
Wagle Monologue (A psycho blog)
I don’t know why but I am happy and satisfied these days. For example, today I am supper happy. It’s not because I had to write only one story, that too barely five-hundred-words long, for my paper. I was happy even yesterday when I had to write a 26-hundred-words story. It’s not because I have been promoted recently and I don’t really give much attention to rumors that they are increasing salary in the office. It’s not because I have won a lottery. (Oh.. buying tickets hoping to become lakhpati or SMSing at crappy numbers isn’t my preferred way of wasting money. That I do by riding cabs in Kathmandu.) It might be because, I think (and guess), I wasn’t really unhappy in the last several weeks to be precise.
I can say with a great deal of accuracy that I was the happiest person a few days ago when finished a story for Koshilee, the Saturday supplement of Kantipur, about the night life of Kathmandu. For me, writing story (yes, I am talking about news story dear) is a painful process. It’s an art, a craft that needs so much careful consideration that every line and words should be put one after another the way they should be put. There is no any definition of writing a good story but then there is no specific method of creating a piece of art too. Words are like bricks. They need to be placed the way bricks are put while building a house. Writing story is like building a house. And on the mental level, it’s slightly more than that. Its equivalent to that of labor process a woman goes through while giving birth to her child. Oh… what a process that, being a male, I have to go through every day and night. I feel proud while undergoing that process and I get strange pleasure while penning a story. I wish I could split myself into two Dineshes and see the Dinesh in action from a quiet corner. Man! That must be a fun. One Dinesh watching the other who is going through the labor pain!
Okay, I was talking about being very happy while finishing a story a few days ago. You see so many things, meet so many people, listen so many things and you have to bring all of them in a one-thousand-word story that too in such a way that a reader will not even think about diverting his eyes from the lines. That’s a tough challenge. For that you need to have a craftsmanship. I don’t claim to have that in the best form but I try to act like having one while doing stories. You have to do that man for you are the one who is writing what you are writing.
Hurricanes (no less than Katrina in intensity) go inside my mind while I think about the lines, headline and even lead and ending lines of the story that I will be writing about in the next few hours. If I have to do that in the same day, I do that while in tempos or buses while returning from a program or interviewing people. In other cases, I do that while I am about to doze off in the middle of the night. I can recount so many instances when I have risen up suddenly from my bed, grabbed the diary and noted down lines for the story. Okay, I have started about lecturing on how to write a story when I just wanted to say is that I was very happy a few days ago when I finished writing a story. The happiness had nothing to do with the subject of the story but the way I presented it.
So I searched on the internet to find out “the best thing in the world” and ended up on a page from Poem of the Week page. Here is the poem:
THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
WHAT’S the best thing in the world ?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world ?
— Something out of it, I think.
Ha..ha.. Waw.. “something out of it, I think”. What a line! But I don’t know why I Googled for the best thing when I really meant to look for the happiest thing (man) in the world (Moon and Mars included if there is anyone out there!).
I reached on a Yahoo! Answers page where people had discussed on the question weeks ago. There are quite a few answers but I think I liked this one, by Iconic, the most:
“Hapiness is a state of mind and relative to our own thoughts, emotions and desires. The happiest person in the world could be you.”
I also agreed with Toothfetish: “[T]he one who can think positive in all situations. smn who is able to be happy from the things he got. [Someone] who doesn’t think about income, success, popular needs of people etc.”
Shabang says, “[T]he ultimate optimist.”
I have no doubt that I am a super optimistic person!
Dinesh Wagle on Nepali Society 