The Happy/Mad Seesaw: A Linguistic Bedrock of Irrational Idealism

Hate is a weird thing. What does it mean to be annoyed, irked, bothered, nauseated, mad, pissed off, and generally displeased? Why do we get this way? It's really strange, if you think about, but not any stranger than being happy. (When I say strange, I mean that sometimes, when we analyze human behavior, it can feel like we are studying some other species.) I would tend to presume that something must precipitate an emotion, like anger or happiness, but often these emotions seemingly just happen upon us, as if from nowhere, or from some source inside our psyches we know not how to reach. Cognitive Therapy is helpful when it states that at the heart of irrational emotional responses lie webs of illogical thinking that is disconnected from reality, in that reality becomes distorted and we feel as though we have little control over external reality (everything 'out there' and 'not me').

That's all very rational, and it is very helpful when I analyze my anger in order to understand why the hell I get pissed off. What's really weird and also immensely insightful is to analyze your own happiness - what are the thought patterns and layers of mental rhetoric lie behind feeling good and happy? Maybe it sounds like a downer to analyze one's own happiness and joy - should we not simply 'be' in the moment and enjoy it? True, but analysis of my own happiness often reveals many of the same distorted feelings and misconceptions about reality that underlie my anger and sadnesses: acute, passionate, even desperate idealism. Idealism can fuel anger (when one's ideals don't match reality) and as well idealism can fuel happiness, when ideals and expectations are realized, no matter how realistic they are. Each side of the seesaw, either up or down, balance on the same fulcrum: irrational, unrealistic, idealistic thought patterns.

What I would like to be able to do is find the source of this idealism within me, somewhere deep down, maybe in an experience or set of experiences, maybe in the imprints upon my mind by the words and sounds and actions of my parents when I was a mere lad - deep inherited ethnic/cultural worldview embodied my own parents lives, or, could it be that the seeds of my own brand of irrational idealism lie deeper, in the very cellular, genetic substructures that make the foundation of my very physical being?