four types of happy

after reading one of my most visited blogs, i had to extract and analyze for myself. the blog quoted a psychiatrist’s categorization of people and how they deal with happiness.

1. the hedonist does things that make him happy today while giving little thought to the future or owning up to the negative consequences of his present actions.

2. the rat-racer foregoes happiness in the present and lives with the perception that he will achieve a big happiness payoff someday in the future.

3. the resigner has given up hope for happiness. he participates in activities that won't make him happy now or in the future.

4. the happy person practices activities that will make him happy both now and in the future.

four categories you say? i should just plop nicely into one of them and be on my way. so which one do i claim allegiance to?

1.) i know that when i was young i had the monetary hedonist attitude. $3.00 in my pocket meant $3.00 of candy in my hand just as soon as i could get to the closest store. come to think of it, in high school $20.00 in my pocket meant going to the movies and possibly the arcade beforehand. saving money for the future, just didn’t happen.
have i since reformed? i do not know. money doesn’t equate with happiness, so just because i blew all my cash as a kid, doesn’t mean i didn’t look towards the future or neglect to work in the present thus sacrificing future happiness. i studied hard in order to one day be accepted into a college. maybe i wasn’t a complete hedonist?


2.) ha! i’m 100% sure that i’m not a rat-racer. no matter what’s going on in my day-to-day, i’ll find some way to enjoy or revert to something happy. without a bit of happy here and there i don’t see the future ever becoming what i want –ultimately happiness.

3.) the answer to 2 and 3 show that i’m clearly not a resigner. although, i have had plenty of moments in life where i shared the perspective of a resigner. in my life i have taken plenty of risks, some turned out well, others not so well. the latter experiences prompted a few negative “hell, i give up” thoughts. john mayer captured these moments quite well:

“and if it ever gets bad
i mean really bad
i'll move to nova scotia
forget the life i had
i'll be up at 9 each morning
down by the shore
collecting things that fell off boats in storms
well ok so i might never
but it's nice to know the option's there” –this will all make perfect sense someday – john mayer.

4.) the happy person – hell, i’m happy right now. i called my mom today which makes me happy. i did my laundry today which will make me happy in the future (especially since i was so low on socks i went out and purchased 8 pairs – lovely how i work 2 blocks from costco!)

conclusion: the psychiatrist that came up with this is a floosey! life is a bit more complex that this. four categories is a bit better than “fear and love”, but still i don’t buy it. there’s more to happiness these days. money plays a role in happiness, friends, jobs, hobbies, location, family. each of these categories are attained differently. one may be a hedonist relationshipper, but a rat-racer money wise. both result in happiness, which category do they land?

finally, a bit off topic, but it’s been on my mind. ben franklin once said “content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor” but isn’t he on the $100.00 bill?! was he discontent?

piano? graph?

i like arrows

designed desk

during a meeting i decided to design the perfect desk. i had 2 monitors and 2 computers in mind at the time. i don't know where the antenna on the left monitor came from...

tempura and udon

this day had to be a rainy day, because i love me some tempura udon when it rains in san francisco.

name

the number one doodle is your name. here's my version.

birthday hat

it must have been someone's birthday, or i had birthday on the brain.

dual monitors

twins!

i normally don't post "this is what i did today" posts. i hate reading them, i hate writing them...


so this is what i did tonight:





i got two dell 1907FP monitors. they measure at 19" diagonally and baby do they make me a happy boy! i come home from working on a computer, to play on a computer!

here's a snap of my desktop, gotta love that 2056x1024 resolution.

heart ache

we love our customers. it says it on our paychecks!!! but there can be some heartbreak due to customers at times...

sharing happy!

i don't care what ya momma told ja, sharing is caring.

patrick wolf

patrick and paris

when it comes to music, movies, commercials, and television –i live in a virtual cave. thing is, i don’t mind living in my little bubble away from the latest episodes of the o.c. and brittney’s latest venture. but when you live in a cave, you still have to go out and hunt for food (in this case my metaphor for food is media/content). while hunting one day i came across a wolf, patrick wolf. now for all i know, mr. wolf could be all over the radio and mtv without me even knowing*, but i doubt it.

so let’s get to it, patrick wolf is a young english musician. it was love at first hear, for me. from there it only got better!

the first song from patrick i heard, paris, caught me by surprise. the song starts out with three violins in a classic style, all three are patrick no less. i felt as though an orchestra would follow the violins. is patrick wolf a classical composer i thought? a brief pause followed by a “heyaa” completely wiped classical music smile off my face.

a high energy drum machine coupled with aggressive distortion synth chords hit you in the face immediately. holy crap this is crazy!

through the song the violins appear and disappear, the heavy distorted synth smashing also visits us throughout the song. his melody is catchy, yet atypical. there’s a raw, bitter, uncontrollable rage to this song. he closes the song of with none other than an accordian and his lyrics "all in the palm of your hand". genious!

my favorite line from the song:
"i found myself in paris, in that cemetary rain" - patrick wolf, 'paris'

i expected to hear this same tone throughout the rest of his album. again i found myself surprised. some of his songs are more tender, some i would call more vulgar.


in an interview, i read patrick wolf quite joni mitchell. she said something along the lines of ‘your first work as an artist confines you to your future works’. pat took these words to heart and made his first album as erratic as possible, as to not lock him into a certain style of music. lycanthropy (his debut album) accomplishes this goal. oh, and he released it when he was 20 years old.

download: paris
download: to the lighthouse
download: epilogue

*note: i gave a sneak peek of 'paris' to a fellow music lover friend of mine. she said it sounded like NIN. i wanted to strangle her at first, but i remembered that she, unlike me, had at the time only heard the song once. she hadn't heard the other tracks, and didn't know what i was hitting her with. NIN is as close to patrick wolf as dr. dre is to the killers. or perhaps the cave i dwell in has transformed me into a complete looney.