a moment’s touch

Happiness. Such a perplexing concept. Buddhism tells us that it’s a permanent state of enlightenment beyond temporary earthly attachments, and that like a lotus flower, you must first push through the muddy waters before you can blossom into something so beautiful and breathtaking. Only when you undergo suffering can you achieve happiness.

Perhaps, in some respects, that is true. But I think that what makes happiness so special and so precious is that it’s fleeting, that it’s not permanent; like a moment’s touch, it warms you but does not stay with you forever. Only its impression lingers in your heart, a memory, a nostalgia for the present, iridescent flashes blurred into one chaotic emotion.

Be happy. A simple statement, a simple concept, but so eternally tangled in complexity and paradox. Some suggest that you are at your happiest when you forget about being happy, much like finding a key that only appears within your line of vision after you’ve stopped looking for it. Happiness is hearing a childhood tune. Eating a slice of chocolate cake. Laughing so hard your stomach aches. Wrapping yourself in warm blankets on a cold winter’s night. It is the rush of something so light yet so profound that clutches onto your heart momentarily before it lets go.

Like an autumn leaf descending, it flies with the wind and refuses to grow lifeless even as it becomes detached from its primary source of life.