Radical Honesty "I Think You're Fat"

I mentioned that I would continue with my blog in July.... it is now December and I have posted nothing. Evidently, I am completely unreliable and have an excuse for everything. What can I say, my pursuit of life has been all consuming. Enough said, I'm back from my five month hiatus.

I know there are many bloggers out there that have much more interesting things to say and some that are much stronger writers than I. I don't really care that they are better than me; that is to be expected. Their is always a smarter, better, beautiful, more reliable version of ourselves being born every second of the day. I blog to express my thoughts and ideas.... and of course to share them with those who care enough to read my on going droning. Hopefully I won't drone on too much. I am sure that there will be times where my perspective is completely ludicrous and you will find yourself saying “what the f*** is this nut job talking about? She’s a complete ass”. And that is fine with me. But I hope that there will be times where you will think, “Hah, I never really thought of it that way” or “wow, that is SO very true”. And I am fine with that too. OK enough about me... I sound like a narcissist.

Idioms

I may sound like a complete and utter skeptic but I have come to the realization that life is not about the pursuit of happiness (happiness is overrated anyhow) but rather the pursuit is life itself. I know, this makes no sense. Well not yet anyway.

This thought came to me when I came across a few idioms. One of which is "Happy as a clam." In it's full form the idiom is "Happy as a clam in mud at high tide" meaning a clam is happy because it cannot be dug up and eaten.

If happiness is that simple we'd all be clams. I understand happiness as segments and moments in our lives. Events and experiences that evoke the feeling of happiness. If that is the context of happiness, then happiness is essentially not sustainable. We can pursue moments of happiness but life as happiness cannot truly exist. If life is the pursuit of happiness then I believe we'd be chasing a red herring. Also another idiom! (Just in case it's not obvious - a red herring is something that takes people's attention away from the main subject being talked or written about). In the pursuit of life we will experience happiness but we will also experience sorrow, anger, rage, guilt, love, regret and a whole gamut of human emotion. For me, life is about experiences, how we handle and react to our experiences and how we continue on to the next experience. Hence the pursuit of life.

Here's another idiom, "Honesty is the best policy" which obviously means that it is best to be honest. We all know that is NOT true. The truth hurts sometimes so we censor that truth to spare each other unnecessary pain. I recently read an entertaining article about a movement called "Radical Honesty". Here's a link to the article "I Think You're Fat" by AJ Jacobs. The Radical Honesty movement was founded by Brad Blanton, a sixty-six-year-old Virginia-based psychotherapist who believes that everybody would be happier if we just stopped lying. Tell the truth, all the time. Have a read... it's an interesting concept... ludicrous in many ways but interesting.