Several myths frame my dissatisfaction, my disaffection with myself. They are myths of Western culture, and perhaps something more than mere myth, so primal and deeply entrenched that their formative principle operates at the perceptual level, the molecular level of thought, too immediate and transient for the slow, slippery grip of consciousness, grasped only obliquely, only through the dissection of metaphor, a cold postmortem that reveals the cause of death but not the murder weapon.
At face value, these myth-reflecting metaphors are incommensurable. Consider the most pervasive, perhaps: “life is a journey,” life is a road to be navigated through rites of passage, in route to some hazy final destination—in our mechanical modern world, a path to be plotted and mapped and strategized, with lines of travel and turning points, with benchmarks and interim targets and waystations. Yet, at the same time we are also told that happiness is a kind of quarry, illusive prey to be flushed out and chased, followed wherever it leads us. Surely, such extemporaneous deviation in the pursuit of happiness would take us irretrievably off course. But then there are those who would argue that the two are not mutually exclusive after all, that as long as we stay on the right path pain and struggle and persistence will eventually lead us to happiness’ hidden lair. Platitudes abound. “No pain, no gain.” “Anything worthwhile takes time.” “Slow and steady wins the race.”
To abandon myth and metaphor, to see myself in the moment, taking only what holds me within the moment itself as primary, ignoring the story I tell myself about how I got here, the traveler’s tale of missteps and wrong turns, obstacles and barriers, stormy seas and uncharted waters, to take myself for what I am now, as I am now, leaves me disoriented and confused, and yet, somehow, wholly free and unburdened, no longer tethered to illusion. And, for a brief moment, right now, right next to me on the floor in a sleepy assortment of legs and ears and tail and fur: happiness.
