One Big Sugar High

I am about to share a very unpopular opinion, and since I am not known for my diplomacy skills I shall just shock you all from the start: Disneyland is not the happiest place on earth.

I spent the whole of Thursday and Friday wondering why Disneyland didn't make me giddy and smiley like everyone else in the queue, why I didn't succumb to buying strange-looking hats that you can only wear in Disneyland, and why I wasn't enticed by all the cotton candy (candy floss for you South Africans), churros and ice cream carts that were conveniently stationed throughout the park.

Yesterday I figured it out: going to Disneyland is like getting a 12-hour sugar high. It brings you surface happiness, but none of that "cheer" penetrates deep into your marrow. As with any sugar high, when it wears off, it drops you below "normal", so you're actually worse off.

Which brings me to my next question: What is the "protein" of the happiness world? I don't want to get preachy here, so let me just rephrase this to say that apart from Jesus, what are those moments in life that are truly memorable, those events that make you belly laugh and can still make you laugh years later when you reminisce? ("Remember that time...?")

I don't think you need a $14 parking ticket for them. I think they happen at the unlikeliest of moments (We were so bored on the drive home that we had a contest to see who could "Moo" like a cow the most convincingly. Then we had a contest to see who could sound the most like Dan's security/tech podcasts). I think they involve deep connections with people who know and love us. I think they often follow moments of deep pain or struggle.

Is it safe to assume that one can only feel joy to the degree that one has felt sorrow? If we never acknowledge our pain or deal with it, then can we truly feel joy? It would seem to me that most of America is about "medicating" our pain - if we can entertain ourselves enough, than we won't feel sad anymore. If we just shop enough, buy enough Starbucks, go to enough movies, listen to enough music, than we'll never have to deal with that empty feeling that nags us in the silence.

Disneyland is fun but it just doesn't cut it for me. I think I'd rather laugh my head off over my bad Afrikaans out in the veld sharing a cup of instant coffee (yuck!) with my friends who love me despite my faults (while trying not to scratch my mosquito bites). Interacting with people on a deep level - that's protein.