happy ?

please listen to this song as you read the rest of this post:

Are you happy?

Like, right now, at this moment, as you’re reading these lines, are you happy?

It’s a difficult question, I know.

In order to answer it, you first need to know what it means to be happy.

If you do know what it means, and if you know whether or not you are happy; then I have another question for you.

On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you?

I felt like an 8 at the time I took this photo.

Is this question harder or easier to answer than the first one…?

If you say ‘7’, or ‘9’, or ‘2,’ what do you make that decision based on? In comparison to how happy you were in other instances in your life? In comparison to how happy, at maximum, you think you can be? How happy you think you deserve to be? Or in comparison to how happy you think the people around you are?

Can you really describe your level of happiness as a number from 1-10? And if you can, can you compare your number with the numbers of other people?

What if they are very pessimistic, and it’s very hard to make them happy? Or what if you don’t share the same definition of happiness?

My card told me to enjoy the rest of the exhibition with my fly open or unbuttoned buttons-unfortunately, I didn't have either.

On Saturday, I went to an exhibition called “The Happy Show” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, affiliated to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The artist is Stefan Saigmeister from Austria, and currently lives in New York. He’s actually a graphic designer, and works with some of the most famous (Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, OK Go…), and some not-as-famous bands and designs their album covers. He was actually at his own exhibition, walking around, talking to his audience, and interacting with his own work, which I thought was pretty cool.

(that's Saigmeister in the background)

The exhibition is unlike anything I had seen before. It’s very interactive, and creates a very personal bond between each member in the audience and itself. The walls of the entire gallery are completely white, and the space is huge, and white, and clean and empty. The only 3 colors (or 1 if you don’t count black and white as colors) he used were yellow, black, and white. He created a very intimate and casual environment by writing every single description on the walls by hand, using a black, Sharpie-like marker, crossed over his mistakes, drew arrows when he wanted to add something, or to point towards certain items on the wall that were part of the exhibition. The first thing you see (if you enter through the side that I entered through) is a yellow box attached to the wall, with the words “What is your symbol for happiness (and no smiley faces)” written by hand in huge black letters above it. There was a pile of small yellow note cards, and a white box with black pens in it so that people could use them to make their drawing. 

I’m not going to describe the entire gallery in this much detail, because, well…I can’t. You really need to see it for yourself.

But, if there’s one thing that stuck with me, it is this message that Saigmeister was trying to give in each of his pieces: do things that scare you, do things that bring the butterflies in your stomach to life, do things that you are not comfortable doing. Because if you never get butterflies in your stomach, it means that you’re always doing the same thing. It might be safe, but its not what life is about. 

"Trying To Look Good Limits My Life"

So do those things that make you uncomfortable. When you go to a karaoke bar, don’t just listen to those who sing, take the microphone and sing a song yourself. Especially if you have a terrible voice. Tell the cab driver to turn the radio off if you don’t enjoy it. Tell that man you see on the street that you really like his hat, or ask that pretty girl at the bar for her phone number.

It is much worse wondering if you should’ve done it rather than actually doing it and maybe getting a reaction you weren’t really hoping to get.

And who knows, maybe one day not too far away, all of these will make you happy(er).