If It Makes You Happy…

Big feelings about small things

At the beach (not far from home (!)) with Barney and Elvis

The internet has not been a kind place for a long time. And just the other day, as noted in the daily chats, it was straight up traumatising. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s good, it means you weren’t served the graphic and harmful content that was circulating in the gossip and gossip-adjacent algorithm. If you know, however, well then, you know – unfortunately, because it wasn’t enough that it was shared on the original account, what makes it that much more frustrating and irresponsible and dangerous is that people copied it and shared it on their own. You will never convince me that there is any benefit to that.

But I’m not here to dwell on it, the opposite, in fact. This is a post I’ve been thinking of writing for a while because over the last few months, I have been actively working to reprogram my response to negative stimulation. Some people, like Eileen Gu, who is a fucking genius, call it neuroplasticity. I wouldn’t go that far, I’m not informed enough to be able to categorise it as such, but it’s been a conscious effort to recognise and name and stay in moments of happiness or contentment – without expectation that it’s a permanent state; and without discounting that for many people this is a luxury; and there’s privilege in and of itself to be able to redirect my thoughts, since for others there is no escaping their circumstances…