Psychologists sometimes ask you questions about whether you are happy or not. They know it’s a daft question but they think that even though they don’t define happy and everybody has a different version of what it is to be happy and different expectations about how happy you need to be to be happy abound, if you think you are happy, then that tells them something useful. Of course, everyone is selling happiness. Macdonalds; One Direction; Red Nose Day. What might be happening, of course, is that we smuggle other stuff through with it, as in the case of Macdonalds, which smuggles through exploitation, commercial values, the triumph of the big corporation, obesity, hypocrisy. Sometimes what also comes through along with the happiness is other stuff too. The feeling you get when your shoulders sink. And it might be that over time your shoulders start to sink whenever you hear that word.
Spirituality is another one of those words where my shoulders sink. What does it tell you when a person tells you they are interested in spirituality? It means they think they’re better than you because you aren’t saying you’re spiritual. It means perhaps they have a pretty dim view of human activity that doesn’t label itself as spiritual. Somebody told me they were interested in the spiritual quest today. Spiritual people use the word quest a lot. I think I just look for stuff. Anyway, I just nodded and went off to another corner of the room where there was less spirituality going on. I hope my shoulders didn’t sink too much.
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