On Happiness (One Year Update)

About a year ago, I made an essay called "On Happiness" which discussed my level of contentment at the time, which I likened to being on a ship at sea in a dense fog - safe and yet completely unsure of how to proceed in life. Since then I've changed a lot, and my response has altered accordingly. Strangely enough, my first post was a good example of the Pool Analogy in effect, though I of course wasn't planning that.

Last year I was questioning everything about my life, as I felt a fork in the road swiftly approaching between my journey as an engineer and as a writer, two things which are in such opposition that it felt to me like there must be a choice between them. Now, I see things a little differently - yes, there must be a choice made at some point, but that choice doesn't extricate writing or engineering from my life completely. Rather, the decision will simply align my focus, akin to putting one pot on the back burner while cooking the main dish in the front. I felt as though my destiny was being lost to the sea while I chartered my vessel into a mundane future, but it needn't be that way, as I've learned. A path may be tread along the middle which does not abandon fate, and while I hope glory awaits me on the side closest to my destiny, I can no longer find any sense in worrying about it; if it happens, then it'll happen - I can only control my own work and ensure its excellency. The rest will take care of itself.

That idea was borrowed from Stoicism (from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations), and from that philosophy I've gained another key insight: Amor Fati, though Nietzsche can be credited for introducing me to the concept. Amor Fati means a love of one's fate. The idea posits that if you're at a point in life where you've attained something of pride, you can have no regrets about your past - every mistake you ever made led directly to your success, and so to wish to rectify a past error, however embarrassing, is hypocritical. I've made a lot of mistakes in life, some humiliating and others just plain stupid. I used to wonder what my life would be if I could go back and change them, but now... I don't know if I want to. 

When I wrote my first post, I was in a difficult place as a writer. I had a new website which excited me to no end, and for the first time I had an audience for my poetry, reviews, and philosophy. However, I wasn't working on anything of note. I felt a suffocating internal panic when I realized I had nothing going on besides some short essays on obscure topics and a few poems. There were some longer projects on which I had made progress, but even then I knew they weren't going to make it anywhere. So I imagined myself expending so much energy for this website and yet never being anything more, putting my career as an engineer at risk, and for what? A few hundred views strictly garnered from my own social media? Besides, how long could I keep writing philosophy without being well read? How long could I keep writing poetry without it turning into a cheap derivative of itself? How long before the reality of my failed destiny sinks in and plummets me from confused contentment to pure nihilism?

But then something happened I did not expect; I started a project with a similar pessimism as I had come to feel for all my works, and yet before I knew it, this project was tens of thousands of words long, and flowing smoothly. Recently, I actually finished the first draft, which marked the first time I had ever finished a writing project so long. That sense of completion alone was enough to manifest Amor Fati in my psyche, but then I began editing and found a great sense of elation in that process - again, unexpected. I thought with a dangerous hope that this project may be publishable sometime in the future, and even if it never sees shelves, I've learned that I can commit to a work and see it through to the end, however far away it may be.

I also mentioned my discontent at a lack of deep personal relationships in my life in the last post, and while that remains the case, my perception of it has changed. I've come to understand there are some things which will come as a result of circumstance; it just takes one fateful meeting to set the events in motion which lead to relationships of true depth. I attribute my worry in the prior post to my pool being boundless for the first time in my life (though it was my second year in school), and as I mentioned in my post on the Pool Analogy, that can lead anyone into the throes of nihilism. 

Now, I'm not elated all the time, and I definitely have periods where I sink into the same existential questions which plagued me last year, particularly with regards to academic nihilism, but there has been one more change in my life which leads me to be more content than this time last year. I've always been a procrastinator and sought to minimize work while maximizing outcomes, but that lifestyle was becoming almost unlivable. As work increased exponentially, deadlines lengthened and my prior habit of getting work done with little to no forethought was leading to middling grades.

As it turns out, the pandemic and particularly online school helped me improve my study habits to the point where I achieved my highest ever GPA over the summer semester, in which I took 19 credits. I wouldn't go so far as to be thankful for the pandemic (too many people have suffered for that), but it was the kick in the butt I needed to move towards my full potential. That, coupled with a birthday resolution to read more challenging books, has led me to new heights in my personal, philosophical, and academic life.

And of course, there are still moments in which I sink into the old pits of existential questions, especially during bouts with academic nihilism, but on the whole I feel I have greater surety about my life now than I did before. My health may even be better than last year, though I haven't seen the inside of a gym since March, and I can say with minimal arrogance that my writing has improved tenfold. Additionally, I'm still thankful for all the things I mentioned last year: a wonderful family, amazing friends, complete control of my mental and physical faculties, and a lifestyle in which I do not need to worry about financial burdens thanks to my parent's hard work.

I'm still in the midst of a thick fog at sea, with Scylla and Charybdis on either side of me, but now I feel as though I can safely sail through them, and that the middle path does not hold sharp rocks ahead - rather it leads to a future where at worst, utility mingles with passion, and at best... well, one needn't hold a roof over their dreams. If this website still lives a year from now, then I look forward to writing an update in which I can expound further on an increase in contentment.