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.

superplane

i've got an obvious affinity for arrows and descriptions. this is my interpretation of a superplane.t.

waste

waste

in general, when it comes to women – almost all men share one thing in common. they want more. men desire the ability to attract so many good looking women, that they are able to reject or deny hot girls whenever possible. the same goes for money. and time. ok i’m going to throw in the kitchen sink on this one, people want more of everything!

having more is better! more money, more friends, more shoes, more boyfriends, more houses, more more.

to what extent is more finally enough?

how does one measure the ‘more’? how do we know when we’re comfortable with what we have? at which point can we turn around and start to enjoy the work that we do each day?

my answer is waste. waste isn’t bad, waste is good! wasting is the new black. wasting isn’t an action, it’s a state of being. wasting is the indication of achievement.

have i gone mad? am i a complete loon? no, i’ve always been a mad loon, and you can’t go mad if you are mad – that’s all besides the point, and yes there is a point.

i’ve defined my situation of contentment, aka the achieved state, with the concept of wasting. the moment you allow yourself to waste, you’ve realized you are content. maybe you haven’t realized you are content, but you most likely are.

for example i love to waste money. buying stupid overpriced products that don’t serve a purpose is one of my favorite forms of entertainment. a drink at the bar can cost >$10.00. albeit a full 750ml bottle of the top shelf alcohol that comes in the $10.00 drink will only cost you $30.00 elsewhere. yet we purchase these drinks and have a hell of a time doing so.

money is fun to waste, but it doesn’t stop there. we want to be able to waste everything.

food is hard for me to waste. i certainly don’t look as though i’ve skipped a few meals, in fact i carry around a bit extra these days, yet i still can’t push myself to waste good food.

time, on the other hand, is a great thing to waste. sitting in bed on a saturday at 4pm is one of my favorite things to do. just waste the day away -especially if it’s bright sunny and clear outside. some people cannot afford to do so: kids, girlfriends, jobs, people who need their internet to be set up… these responsibilities obstruct your lazy saturday agenda. but if you have ample time (which we do all want) then you will be able to waste these precious minutes.

the concept of wasting previously brought forth a negative connotation, to waste is to do wrong. this was my mentality until i revisited the concept of waste, which had been drilled so deep into my thick skull. why is wasting so bad, why can’t i throw away half of my perfectly edible pizza.

i have the means to buy another one if i want. hell, i have the power and the means to buy 10 pizzas right now. if i wanted to, i could toss the 10 perfectly edible pizzas face down on the dirty street. i’m able to waste them and not feel a hit to my personal finances, my hunger, or my ego. i may be looked down upon by others, especially if they are hungry, but they don’t get it.

wasting is proof that you’ve arrived. wasting is exercising your comfort level. wasting is celebrating. i’ve deduced that having enough, means having just enough to fit your needs, and then some left over for frivolous entertainment value.