Is That a Cat On Your Subwoofer?

WE JUST TRACKED DOWN and published a lone response to my year-old entry here. The slightly dusty but well-crafted comment suggests that if happiness is a gift from above, how then to explain unhappiness? Depression?

I'm reminded of an observation made by Capt. Spock concerning Khan Noonien Singh:

“He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.”

It is hard to be sure from where all human emotion originates.

I want to assert my belief that if God is not a person, then happiness is not an object to be given and then occasionally taken back, or revoked. There is no switch operated by an unseen hand. St. Augustine suggests that true happiness can only be attained by an awareness of the presence of a higher power. That prompts me to believe that happiness is always at hand. It is a matter of remembering one’s unceasing connection to and being part of all things visible and invisible, near and far, and past present, and future.

And by the way, at 22 months, Eleanor seems to understand the meaning of “happy”.