On not being happy all the time

[nancylebov]

rivka recommends this essay about the cruelty of the assumption that people should be able to be steady-minded in the face of anything that happens and enjoy every aspect of what they need to do and/or that everything that happens is mystically chosen by the people involved.

On the smaller scale, I just heard Bobby McFerrin on the BBC (I haven't found the link). Now, I have a tremendous respect for him, but I also have a reflexive dislike of being told what to feel. It was a long siege when "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was popular, and I didn't think it was musically very interesting, either.

The interviewer asked McFerrin whether, considering that he'd done so much ambitious and experimental music, it was annoying that "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was the most popular thing he'd ever done. McFerrin said that it was annoying (this isn't an exact quote-- even if I could find the link, I couldn't play it in the US)-- it took him a long time to get used to it, but a lot of people have told him how much the song meant to them. By implication, he's reconciled to it.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

I'm pretty sure the song was meant ironically, though a lot of people (including a major political campaign) didn't take it that way.

[milimod.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- I'm a UU and probably should have found that before now. :) But I've shared it on FB with a note that yes, adopting a more positive attitude CAN be a powerful way to improve your mental health and cope with adversity, but it's so very counterproductive -- and immoral! -- to try and impose it one someone else like thought-control.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. That line makes me cringe every time I hear it. The idea that if you worry about bad things you're "giving energy" to them, and that if you just "follow your bliss" everything will fall into your lap. Yes, well, maybe that works for some very lucky people, and I'm honestly glad for them, but personally my "bliss" is a dot on the horizon and I can't go any faster in these shoes, and even if a lot of my problems are my fault (and they are) it really doesn't help to be told that.

I don't know if that song was meant ironically, and I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, I want this to be a world where at least some people can do it that easily; on the other, if it is, I'd really like them to shut up crowing about it.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Some of us are wired that many of our bad things go into the fuel tank that keeps us moving, and it would be nice if there were more songs addressing that as a positive way to be.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Could you expand on how bad things go into the useful fuel?

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

Bobby McFerrin does very interesting stuff but all most people know of his work is "Don't Worry, Be Happy", much like all people know about Mike Oldfield is "Tubular Bells".
Such is the fate of a No. 1 hit single. See "Boxed Set" by BareNaked Ladies.