Tag Archives: Kevin Smith

The source of happiness (for an anxious, pessimistic idiot)

Happiness, it’s a tricky concept and the title of a very depressing film.  Happiness can be achieved in many ways and I’ve found that there is more happiness in my life, since I let it in. But what is it that creates happiness?

Google ‘happiness’ and you’ll learn that it involves jumping in the air and stretching out your arms. You’ll also be entertained by the horrible cliché quotes that are representing the mental state of happiness.

Yoda
I listened to the Smodcast by Kevin Smith today, where Smith and Scott Mosier (allegedly) get stoned and discuss stuff. They discussed a little video of George Lucas, talking about happiness. Happiness, he says, can be achieved through either joy or pleasure. Pleasure is an intense rush, like a drug infusion to your system, that gives momentary happiness… and eventually sadness when it wears of. It’s self centred as well, it’s all about you. That makes sense. I used to be satisfied with one Kinder Bueno, now I need five and then I feel depressed due to my stomach ache. It’s a silly metaphor, but you always want more of the things that give you pleasure.

Joy however, is a persuit that last forever. It’s something you can recall, it’s giving something to another from yourself, its compassion. It’s much smaller and a choice. I chose to persue happiness in the happiness of persuit. So where do I take my joy from these days? He was being true to his creation of Yoda there, very much so. Giving a shard of wisdom in a humble and traight forward way.

The world looks very nice
I had a strong tendency to look at the world as a grimy, grim place full of people that were evil. Seriously, that is a hard way to go through life if you aren’t playing Skyrim (even there compassion only sometimes bites you in the ass). Something changed though, I can see things differently now. Today I was feeling joy at things I saw around me. I was cycling and listening to this podcast, passing by the bus station. I saw a bus driver with his son. He had dreads, that looked very good, like he really took care of them. He greeted his colleague and walked through the bus. It sounds sad, but the fact that two people with different skin colours actually say hi makes me happy and hopeful these days. He proceeded, while smoking a cigarette, while instructing his kid to open the bus and get in. That was nice, a dad showing his kid the ropes. I enjoyed that. A little later I cycled over a small bridge. A man in dress shirt, carrying a brief case walked over it too. He stopped and turned towards the water, his face relaxed and he stood there enjoying the water. It was nice to see. This is the beauty I see around me now.

People
My greatest joy comes from interacting with people. It’s still a conscious thing sometimes to show empathy and ask those helpful questions, but more and more it goes automatically. It feels natural and I enjoy giving these small amounts of good to others. I love nothing better than cheering someone up, helping them out or succesfully arguing about some point. Not in the manner I used to, where I’d be aggressive, impatiant and defensive, but calmly and openly.

Noise
All in all I enjoy the world around me a lot more and I feel much calmer and more patient. Still, that’s all on a good day. I have more good days then I ever had before I think. Still, there are days when there’s all this noise, this distortion in my head and I can’t get to those good parts, where pleasure is my happiness.

Let me try to explain what that noise is. I have a lot of anxiety, so much that I have decided to try and really work on that. Now, everyone feels anxious sometimes, but why does it become noise? Well, simple. Imagine that anxious moment, where you worried everything would go wrong and the worst possible outcome was waiting for you. Everyone has such moments. Got it? Now imagine having that pretty much about anything, worrying and preparing for the worst all the time. It creates a lot of buzzing noise in ones head. Sometimes enough to not see the beauty around you anymore and the good side of people.

Source: Abdol Rauf

So what is the point? Well, Karma.
So what am I really saying there about happiness? Well, even though I still struggle in my persuit of joy, I am finding it and through it happiness. George Lucas is spot on, unlike with Jar Jar Binks, with his statement. This persuit is well worth it and has improved my life a lot this far. It’s all about Karma, what you give you get. If you invest in your happiness by giving, you’ll receive. I can tell you that much. I’m not there yet and I certainly had to ask for help many times along the way.

Surely, I don’t have the final answers. Just an uphill struggle and my experiences with that. I’m trying to give that little bit to anyone who is willing to appreciate it. That’s enough for me.

Self Help Books

I know that most of you will read this and make a frown or do a face thing expression of confusion mixed with disgust at this ridiculous topic. Self Help Books, yes. I have read some and I can tell you about a few that I think for my fellow nerdy readers might be useful. I have to say, they might not be the standard ones you’d expect. It’s just stuff that I feel helped me learn.

Granted, I’m not a perfect being and still heavily in the proces of learning to control my anger and hatred for the human race, but I believe that these books have actually helped me come to grips with myself and learn to love the bomb…. Not the boob, I already praised that highly. Let me list them for you here with some explanation and perhaps you can find something for yourself.

Mind that I’m part of an audience that likes the nerdy-side of things and therefor finds solace in reading books that are nerd-inspired, geeky and that I can relate to on a personal level. I’m sure there’s plenty of sports writers and such who can do that just as well for you if you’re into that more. Oh… and hockey. Let’s see about that bullshit of the self-help industry.

Stephen R. Covey – The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Oh yes, you’ve heard this one before, so stop me, stop me oh stop me…. It is after all still the most effective, well written book in the whole genre. Sure, it’s a bit idealistic and supposes some grand wisdom in its seven habits, but not without reason pretty much every other book refers to this one. I guess in a way it speaks to so many people due to it being very middle of the road and staying close to an abstract level. The anecdotes help in giving you a sense of understanding though. I do believe that this book may be a bit over some peoples head though. If you want to give it a try, go for the abridged audio version first. Not  only does it speak much more to you, it also stays closer to the core ideas instead of jumping in the deep end.

I mean, this is kinda like the Jedi manual when it comes to it. So it might scare you away at first, because you first need to grasp some basics and be OK with not moving at immense speeds forward. I felt empowered at first and disillusioned after a while, because of its almost religious striving for mastery. This kind of brings me to my next title.

Wil Wheaton – Just A Geek

What I felt was most important to help understanding myself is being understood and able to relate to things. I have never been able to put my anxieties and worries to words, they never made much sense to me and felt very instinctive. The Covey book put me onto reading more and so I started getting into this biographical account of Wil Wheaton. Wil is the kind of guy, whose humor and take on life I really appreciated as soon as I started to get into his stuff. Specially his ‘law’ on gaming really appealed to me and even got me to name my blog after it.

In his book he tells his story and though I havent been a struggling actor with a glorious past, I was a guy (or am, but I chose not to see it that way. anymore) who graduated with a thesis  that was called brilliant and then failed to live up to anyone’s expectations, mostly my own. I felt I could relate to that. In his book, there’s some shifts of personality, of approach to things that you can learn from. For someone in the acting bizz, everything is larger than life. Not just the successes, also the failures. It thought me about those, but also about what it means to be driven and follow your gut.

Chris Hardwick – The Nerdist Way

Thanks to Wil Wheaton I found out about Chris Hardwick, a dude that, like me, had struggled with some health issues in the past and had shifted that around. The difference is that Chris is, unlike me, highly productive and succesful. That is exactly what Hardwick tries to bring across in this book, making it awesome. The silly way he does it in appeals to me too, because self-deflating humor has become a huge part of me and the way I deal with myself. I mean, you can hardly be a dick to yourself, right?

Turns out you can and I do that a lot. Instead of rising above, facing things head on, I tend to flee. I do that in an almost scorched earth way sometimes. Chris speaks to me in the sense that he has been there, he has been down to a lost, alcohol guzzling has-been and back to the top in a place he wanted to be. that feels amazingly powerfull and therefor something to learn from.

Kevin Smith – Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good. 

Yeah, I found inpsiration in the work of Kevin Smith, you know… the guy who is Silent Bob. It’s maybe not even this book, but the podcasts he did with Jason Mewes (Jay) about some real life problems. A lot of the book is about this friendship and it shows how far you can go in doing your best for others. Also another story of falling down and getting up again, learning and growing and finding that crock o’ gold at the end of it all.

The podcasts deal more with looking back and making fun of your own fucked up mistakes in the past life that you have to deal with. Acceptance is a way to growth that is pretty hard and that lesson is definitely in here too.

Gordie Howe – Mr. Hockey

I did say I love hockey, right? This book is about the challenged life of Gordie Howe, the absolute superstar of hockey. He went on to play till he was 50 years old, being the oldest NHL player of all time, only surpassed in points way later by Wayne Gretzky. It is kinda ok if you are surpassed by ‘The Great One’. The book shows remarkable love for the game and humility from the man. Its amazing to read how even in his eighties he still notices every aspect of a game he watches. There’s a lot of quirky little things in there that show how normal the guy is.

Gordie Howe is an inspiration to go for what you believe in and stick with it. Not untill they tell you to quit, but up till you think its time to quit. Humility, respect, acceptance and love, its all in there in the life of a real stand up guy.

Alright, I suppose this is sort of a weird list of books to consider self-help. I also have to admit that by now, I hate Covey’s book. It’s way to high flying. Anyways, I think books inspire, not the ‘right books. What inspires you might just as well be Harry Potter. As long as you keep reading, you find idols, icons, villains and dreams. The most important thing is to keep having those.

I tricked you a little bit into reading this. I hope you still enjoyed that and maybe you’ll pick one up from my list.

The Reading of Books #10

A new selection of books I’ve read, with work from Haldor Laxness, Kevin Smith,  Thich Nhat Hanh and Chris Hardwick.

Haldor Laxness – Iceland’s Bell

“Have you ever seen Iceland rise from the sea?” Asks the protagonist of the Icelandic people Arnas Arnaeus at some point in this book. That sentence stuck with me in this novel by Nobel price winner Haldor Laxness about the impoverished people in Iceland during the Danish reign. The book consists out of three parts, of which the second and third are the more serious ones. The first part mainly features Jón Hreggvidson, a farmer who happens to be at the wrong places all the time and instead of getting his head lobt of ends up travelling all the way to Danmark to plea for his case.

The other character is a noble lady from Iceland who is instrumental in the continued existance of Jón Hreggvidson and embodies a different Iceland. She and Arnaeus have a bond, a romance that is like the fleeting romance Iceland has with its liberty. It never truly comes to pass in the book but always seems near. There’s a lot of black and bleak humor in the book, specially on the account of the Icelandic population, personified in crook and fool Hreggvidson, who the reader cannot but love, regardless of all his foolish behaviours and constant reciting of the same ballad. It’s a book that instills a love and sympathy for that strange island. Well worth reading, specially thanks to its complex symbolism and folk like telling style.

Chris Hardwick – The Nerdist Way

source: goodreads.com

I started on ‘The Nerdist Way’, because I felt particularly in need of something to help me elevate my spirits. Originally I expected to find a fun book about the life of Chris Hardwick, but it turned out to be a very well intended self-help book for people with the same sort of obsessive syndroms and social awkwardness as him. Something I can relate to, but also filled with that particular humor, filled with self-deflating jokes. I was impressed by the upbeat nature and strenght of the book, which is an honest attempt to make a difference and really help people.

At various points Hardwick admits he is not a professional and suggests seeking professional help if you as a reader deal with specific problems. He talks about an attitude in life, a generally healthy lifestyle and even gives advice when it comes to excersising. The book outlines an alternative for those of us that have caught the nerd syndrome of sticking to the indoors. This book can really give you some motivation to make some changes and thus be living your life to the fullest. Chris Hardwick is an inspirational figure, not just in what he does, but also where he comes from. His punchline for this book seems to be: “I’ve been at my worst and now at my best, so I just want to try and share this so aothers can learn from it.” It really works because of that sheer honesty.
Thich Nhat Hanh – Living Buddha, Living Christ 

In this book the Vietnamese monk is attempting to define the underlying similarities between most big religious movements in the world. It’s a praise worthy attempt, because Thich Nhat Hanh seems to be spot on with a lot of things. He succesfully peels of the layers of dogmatism and classic indoctrination to reach the essential meaning of religious movements. He lists similarities between the Buddha and Christ, leaving out a lof of the fundamentelist motives inherent to various religions In that way, he sincerely opens up the dialogue with an open mind.

The author also describes the dismayed responses he has gotten over time, but points out that as religions learn from eachother, they can also remain relevant. This touches upon an issue that pretty much every major religion seems to face in recent times: loss of touch with the followers. Speaking from my own knowledge, I see that less and less people are visiting church. Some people rejoice over this, but I see it as a spiritual bankrupcy and I’m fairly sure that we’ll start seeing that some time in the future. I feel happy that books like this excist, offering a third way of finding a spirituality through the things that you find appealing in various religions, atleast I think Thich Nhat Hanh grants us that liberty, as long as we do it sincerely and respectfully.

Kevin Smith – Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good

Source: Goodreads.com

So I continued with this biographical book by Kevin Smith. Smith is one of my favorite directors, whose films I think I’ve all watched. Red State is the last in line and Im planning to watch this very soon.  In this book Smith talks about his life and whatever stuff happened to him in the  same way his characters talk in the early films. So yeah, there’s a lot of metaphors involving dick jokes and such, but one needs to get over that to find the gold underneath, which is various life lessons and hilarious anecdotes about a lot of weird stuff and the film industry.

There’s also going to be a lot of Clerks being mentioned. I feel a bit of embarrasment now and then about the direct words used by Smith, but that just says more about me. I recommend this book for the simple reason that it is hilarious and cathartic. Im pretty sure that Kevin Smith has faced enough tribulations in his own way. Sure, there’ s that whole different level where it takes place, in Hollywood and all. Still, this is transferrable to real life and sure as hell we all need some advice from a fat man who did good.

Oh, there’s also bits about Jay & Silent Bob, Dogma, Clerks, Chasing Amy, Jersey Girl, Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis.