It’s a title that haunts me. This will be my third piece that has gone by the name of Open Eyes. My first was a screenplay that frankly was poorly executed and never saw the light beyond a semi-final of a screenwriting competition. My second attempt was a song that was meant to be featured in that film and yet between the two, I feel that I still have only captured a glimpse of what I’ve been trying to say. How can I put into words that we need to change our perspective and appreciate life for the simple beauty and truth it reveals to us every day? And how can we do that when not everything is as we would want it to be?
I place myself at the front of the line that fail in what I’m trying to basically preach. Like a moth to a light, I’m lured to look at everything else that swirls around me. I miss the days when I would sit at the base of a tree alongside the river and blankly stare at the water pouring gently over the rocks. I’ve allowed everyday life and expectation to pull me from that serenity. Why? Why am I like this? Why is our society like this? Why do we crave to go beyond the simple necessities of life and refer to that as a pursuit of happiness?
And thus this title of Open Eyes and this ideal that it is to me brings me back to that question once again of what is happiness? Do we settle for the answer that happiness is whatever it means to you or is there some consistency within the foundation for all of us? Are we meant to be truly happy or is this life just a trial to earn our place somewhere else? These questions bombard me especially around this same time every year as our society becomes deranged with the lust of materialism and expectation that love is expressed by the giving of an object. I’ve grown to almost despise the holiday of Christmas because of it. Is this an example of what we define as happiness, running around crazed to purchase things for others that already have their basic necessities met?
What about those that don’t have food on their table or shelter over their heads? They seem to always take a back seat in this “time of giving”. If we were to ask them what is happiness what do you believe their answer would be? If you wrap a blanket around a man who has no home in the cold of night, is he one step closer to his happiness? I only assume those that for whatever reason cannot meet their basic needs have a very different perspective on what happiness is and why should their definition of happiness be different from those that are more fortunate? I’m sure I’ll receive responses to this question of how do I know what happiness is for the more “fortunate”. I’m relatively confident that in our culture today, I would not receive the answer of food, water and shelter from most people that earn a living wage. I believe most to an extent take those things for granted.
That confidence comes from my daily interaction with our society. Because of my viewpoints, I will never share publicly what it is I do to support my family, but it involves working with people and a lot of them at that. I enjoy what I do and enjoy working with people, but I am not blind to the slow descent our society has taken into irrational outrage and hate that I witness day in and day out especially when most of the events that spark this behavior are trivial. And that’s before I even turn on the news or see horrific videos through social media feeds. I ponder so often after these moments as to why these people are so irate. At the end of the day, I know their basic necessities have been met, so why the rage and indecency? Why is the communication so disrespectful and hateful? Why does it seem that they are so unhappy?
My conclusion always leads me back to perspective. Their eyes are not open to what I believe is the one consistency that is at the foundation of true happiness for all of us and it comes down to three simple words. The little things. I am an owner of plenty of nice material possessions, but before my body is given back to the earth and I reflect on the things that made me happiest in life, it’s the little things that will make the list. That soft beautiful sound of a cello, the hysterical laughter of my children that echoes through my head even when they are not with me and nights that I shared with my closest loved ones that were filled with maybe nothing more than a nice glass of wine, good music and a fire. Only a few examples of my little things among countless other moments in my life that accompany the fact that every day I have good food to eat and a roof to cover my head. At the end of every day, my only struggle is to remember to open my eyes and really see those things in front of me. The simple truth of what the little things of life are. Beautiful. And that is happiness. You just need to open your eyes.