Sated

Many years ago, I was very into a band called Northlane. There’s a particular song of theirs that has this line as the opening hook:

I am what I create

Colourwave by Northlane

This is a motivational idea, but also a venomous one. The world at large tries its best to convince us that our worth is in the value-add, what we bring to the table. It defines humans as resources to be used and exploited.

Now, of course, creation and creativity can and do lead to happiness, both for the creator and those that witness things the creator makes. But creation is not simultaneous with happiness.

Creation, or consumption, or participation, or whatever verb describes the act intended to obtain happiness, must be followed by feeling.

Happiness is feeling.

It is a feeling I am experiencing right now, all through today, the day after I saw Evanescence live. They’re a band that means a lot to me, as they do to so many people, and witnessing their music in the flesh was an extraordinary experience. I am filled with melancholy and contentment in a delightful mix that I haven’t felt in a long time. The melancholy is because it’s over. The contentment is because it happened. In this moment, I want for nothing, nothing at all – all my normal yearning and striving and too-large awareness of existence is at rest. All that matters is the feeling.

This is mindfulness, and this is happiness.

I have spent the last 6 months both frantically making, and studying how to make, in the hopes that it will lead me to a desired career path, because I had deeply and subconsciously bought in to the idea that I am what I create.

But that is not true.

I am. And that is enough.