It all happened on Easter Sunday.
A lot of my friends went to the countryside, the mountain. Paris seems very calm. The sliding doors of my studio are wide open on the garden. Birds are singing frenetically. There is that gentle feeling of summer easiness in the air.
I start the day with a bit of blog reading. No pressure ☺
I read a blog post, or more precisely, I listen to a radio extract of a man screaming his despair to the world. The crisis is pushing people to the edge where things need to be addressed. It started a debate about the crisis, banks, the government, the French position in the world… One says that the other one is an idiot to think like he does. The debate is heating up. What are the solutions to the crisis? Is there an other system possible?
It’s very difficult to have a voice in this world.
My voice for example is sometimes rising and I feel my blood going up to my head. « Don’t you understand? » « Why is he so stubborn? » Afterwards I always feel a bit ashamed. Why did I need to convince that person? What was I aiming for? How did it contribute to a better world?
I have traveled this world and met a lot of people from different backgrounds, religion, ethnics, age, fortune… I came to the conclusion that however objective I can try to be, I will always be influenced by TV, my entourage, my experiences… My opinion has a shape now and here, will have a different one tomorrow and there, and had an other one yesterday. How can one look at the history of the world, at the diversity of people and beliefs and think he has the truth of a changing world? So yes, I feel tense after a heated conversation because I know that I was feeding a part of myself that wants to be heard, which is seeking recognition or power.
It can seem simplistic but hear me out (ah trying to convince again ☺)
Sometimes people seems to look at me as if I was a naïve little girl who doesn’t want to face this world. I often hear the word « utopist ». May be. My thoughts are the result of one experience. My experience, even if now it looks like a bedtime storybook, has been very rich. Thanks to my wounds and my need to understand, I have experienced different customs, visions, believes. I loved it but I also got totally lost in it. What is the value of what I believe if I am a sum of influences, chemical reactions, history? I felt like a puppet in the world. Starving, killing: is that real? Should I go run to help him or her? How could I save anyone if I can see anger, despair in myself?
I found out that there is only one driver that I can trust: happiness. I now see despair, suffering but it doesn’t drain me like it used to because I have implemented happiness in my life and I can give with no fear of missing.
Where my mind was seeing contradictions, now it sees a way. Happiness is, to me, a discipline. I learn to let go of things I was trying to hold on to. I am trying new ways and my only barometer is happiness. Now I would have to define happiness. That’s what I want to do with this blog. Explore science, business, religion, feelings, psychology… to get to understand what I live. Is being happy a mental process?
While I was answering on Korben’s blog post trying to write my vision of economy and how it could be more focused on human happiness, two couchsurfers I am hosting tonight arrived. Richard brought me in a nutshell what I was trying to express. He is part of a new breed of entrepreneurs who have a different focus.
So here is a little interview we did in the garden about him, socksforhappypeople and their values. Business, how it can be profitable and contribute to happiness is a subject that I will develop later on. I hope that the company will grow to see how those values evolve. So Rich, let’s meet again to see if happiness can be sustained in a business environment.
Socksforhappypeople from Joanna QUELEN on Vimeo. Is it utopist or megalomaniac to talk about happiness and even worth, to think that understanding it could change the world? Let’s explore.]]>
