Comfortably Numb

I've been thinking lately about comfort and the illusory sense of happiness that is seemingly associated with it.  Now this may be a dour way to approach a subject that should be full of joy, but bear with me and we may be able to come up with some answers.  Although if this post is going to be anything like the other posts I've submitted, we'll probably just come up with more questions.  Oh well...

First, let's figure out what comfort truly is.  Comfort is, to me, one of the ultimate goals of human existence.  I don't exactly have a full list of what those goals are, but I know that comfort would definitely make the cut.  We are made to seek out comfort.  Most of us don't look for a situation in which we will be morose and unhappy.  And even if we do begin in that situation, we fully expect to adapt and become comfortable.  We have the natural urge to come to grips with our lives and search for the people and places that make us most comfortable.  If we have a job that is rotten, we will forget it at closing time and hang out with friends, or try to bond with co-workers more.  If our personal life remains something to be desired, we will throw our life into our work, once again creating a sense of comfort.  If we are in a place that we don't want to be, we will, perhaps subconsciously, latch onto those people who have always brought us comfort.  It's a natural way to approach those things in life that we are not too fond of.

So far I've mostly been discussing the feeling of comfort we get from other people, but there are, of course, many ways to feel comfortable.  It could be from food, a good book, or even solace.  Shutting out the world, alienating ourselves from the cacophony of a society in which sometimes we don't fit into and oftentimes want to escape from is another sense of comfort.  I've certainly felt that way sometimes.  I've thought about escaping into a world where I could be, conceivably, endlessly happy.  Some may find comfort in their hopes and dreams, with the most extreme comfort-seekers completely shutting out the real world entirely to flit into the apparent perfection of dreams.

And right there, I think, is where the good feeling of comfort morphs into something dangerous.  If we are constantly at odds with our surrounding community that we solely seek a created comfort, we are lost.  This happens when we choose to not come face-to-face with our present circumstances.  If we are not to have that sense of adaptability, we tend to fall into a false reality, where comfort is only gained from within ourselves.  I am of the mind that social interactions are one of the healthiest things we can do.  And turning off those interactions in favor of a personal sense of comfort can only create problems.  We can fall into a spiral and, like the title of this blog, become comfortably numb.  We lose feeling and our sense of worldliness.  We become, to the outside world, lonely and numb.  But aren't we comfortable?  Isn't that happiness?  Heavy thoughts...

Admittedly the above is a worst-case scenario.  It happens, of course, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.  I've been wrestling with using comfort as an escape.  Coming back to a place after sometime away can be an incredibly frustrating experience, especially when the place we're returning to is, on the exterior, inferior in every way.  We naturally pine for that old place.  Some may shut down and others may seek comfort in what used to be comfortable.  I remember when I came back to Detroit after spending the summer in Colorado.  I didn't want to run on those stupid streets, I didn't want to go back to that less-than-stellar school, and I didn't want to abandon my Domino's manager Laura (though she had a boyfriend...tilt).  Those first few weeks in Michigan were kind of miserable.  But eventually I returned to school, remembered how awesome my friends on the team were, and, after a short while, fell back in love with Detroit.  That year, my last as a collegian, was the best of my entire life, perhaps because I let it be.  I thought often about those months in Colorado, traveling and living the dream, but I did not let it derail my present.

All of this leads me to happiness.  Happiness can be, I believe, an emotion of choice.  I remember that scene in the movie Say Anything when John Cusack is upset because his sister is always so sour because her husband left.  He asks her "Why can't you be in a good mood?  How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood once in a while?"  It's never easy, however, to choose this happiness.  There are so many attacks from the world that can mortgage our happy feelings...but does this happen only if we let it?  Or does it happen regardless?  This is very hard for me to answer right now.  I could look at certain situations in my life and choose to ignore the negative in favor of the potential for more happiness.  In the meantime, I could put on a face of happiness, in hopes that it may manifest itself as the real thing.  Does that compromise our sense of self?  Does it affect our sense of self to others?  Hmm...could be tangent time here.

If we choose to be happy, don't we appear on the outside to be more happy?  Wouldn't that attract more people to us who are also happy?  Wouldn't their happiness further influence our sense of happiness?  I mean, if we learn that the key to getting ahead in life is to be more happy, wouldn't he jump at the chance?  And if we could see that being happy is simply an emotion that we can either embrace or shun, wouldn't we, without question, be happy?  But what happens when that sense of happiness is exploited?  What if our happiness draws in angry people who are looking for an equalizer?  What if our faux sense of happiness is somehow exposed and we become angry again?  But take that a step further.  Wouldn't the resulting anger be a choice as well?  I mean, if we're in charge of our happiness and good moods, aren't we, by default, in charge of our anger, sorrow, fear, and every other mood?  The short answer, yes.  The long answer will have to be in another blog.

Returning to the discussion of happiness resulting from comfort.  Doesn't all happiness come from a sort of comfort?  We seek out comfort to be happy with ourselves and our circumstances.  We never find comfort and are sad because of it.  So I guess this is where I get a bit confused.  Where is the line between finding comfort in the person who's always been there, for instance, and the comfort in the person who's been there more recently?  Are they not one in the same?  Especially if we're finding comfort to escape certain realities? Being comfortable, especially with a person or people, is what we're looking for, correct?

I can't answer this question.  I can't even adequately explain it.  I guess that's part of the problem.  We can only answer it individually.

On second thought, I can.  Finding comfort in the people who are closest to us, the people who have always been close to us, is true happiness.  Especially if they're offering that comfort.  But doing something just because it's comfortable...what to make of that?  Isn't that the amalgamation of what I've been talking about the last few days?

Doing what's comfortable because it made us happy for a really long time, or doing what's comfortable because it made us happy more recently...which to cling to?  And then, taking it a step further, what is that happiness?  Pretty philosophical stuff...