Cogs can think.

For a long time now, I’ve been wondering how it’s possible that some people can be extremely excited and happy about the tiniest of things, the tiniest of achievements, gestures, or presents, while others need so much more in order to be happy. How is it possible that some people seem to take on life’s most fcuked up moments effectively, while others seem to cringe at even the slightest of missteps?

There’s a multitude of reasons, of course, but one of them, I think, is what I now call the Theory of Infinite (Un)happiness (I came up with that all by myself, nice eh?). See the below diagram:

There’s a scale that goes from infinite unhappiness, to infinite happiness. Somewhere in between sits your Lifetime; your most difficult and unhappy moments define the border on the unhappiness side, while your best and happiest moments define your border on the happiness side. You spend most of your life somewhere in the middle, but whenever something, for instance, really sad happens to you, it depends on your border on the unhappiness side as to how well you’ll be able to cope with it.

If it falls within the border, you’ll most likely be able to cope with it fairly well. It will affect you, no doubt, but you’ll get over it. If it falls outside of the border, it will be more difficult to deal with - and the further outside the border it falls, the harder it will be to deal with. Of course, this works cumulatively; a lot of unhappy events falling within your border of unhappiness can add up to drive you outside of the border. After the events outside of your border are over, and you’ve dealt with them accordingly, even if it took a lot of time and effort, your border moves up a few notches, and your Lifetime will become broader.

In other words, your personal definitions of “infinite unhappiness” and “infinite happiness” coincide with the border of your Lifetime area. Happiness, therefore, is relative.

An inevitable consequence of the Theory of Infinite (Un)happiness is that not everyone will have a Lifetime of equal width or position. I believe that this is something that can cause major problems in relationships - platonic and romantic. Let me explain.

Even though no one thinks in terms of Lifetimes and infinite whatevers, most people realise subconsciously that their Lifetime might not be as broad or narrow as that of another. Personally, I’ve had my share of really unhappy and sad moments in my lifetime - I have two mentally ill brothers that have wrecked havoc on my parents and I since before I can even remember, and I’ve been through things of which the mere thought can still bring me to my knees - even now, now that my parents and I rarely have contact with my brothers, their names make me cringe, and certain songs that I have connected to them can severely break my day. I won’t detail it all, because it’s really none of your business and I don’t want to sound like a nancy, but it’s been pretty rough.

Add to the above the fact that my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago, and all the crap that followed from that, and you cans see that my border on the unhappiness side is closer to the infinite unhappiness side than that of others who’ve had less troublesome lives.

Now, let me assure you, I’ve not had a bad or unhappy youth - quite the opposite. I have an infinite amount of great and very happy moments in my youth, I had every thing I could have ever wished for (well, except for ‘normal’ brothers, that is), and I’ve been blessed with the best parents one can ever wish for.

But I digress. So, for someone of just 23 years old, I have a fairly broad Lifetime area on the Happiness Scale - but I realise that a lot of other people have even broader Lifetimes, because they have been through a lot more shit than I have. In other words, I, and with me many others, realise that something that might make me very unhappy, something that makes me depressed and miserable, can seem like a relatively minor and unimportant incident to someone whose Unhappiness border is a lot further down west - and I act accordingly.

Trivially put, I won’t loudly whine about my phone being stolen to someone who just had their entire house robbed empty, including their cars and wallets.

However, this doesn’t go for everybody. There are quite a few people on this world that do not realise that happiness and unhappiness are very relative terms. That in and of itself is not a problem - it only becomes a problem as soon as these people come into regular contact with someone with a much different Lifetime area than their own.

A person who does not understand the relativity of happiness, and who has a very narrow Lifetime area quite far towards the Infinite Happiness side of the scale, might complain loudly about things that seem utterly and wholly irrelevant and insignificant to someone with a Lifetime area closer towards the Unhappiness side of things. If someone continually complained to me about healthy sibling rivalry, saying it made them very unhappy and depressed, I fully sympathise with that someone, because I realise that’s all he knows - he’s never seen sibling rivalry go beyond what is considered healthy. To him, it’s a major problem, and I’ll treat it as such, and discuss it as such.

But what if I didn’t realise the relativity of happiness? The guy or girl could piss me off, could annoy me with his constant whining about something I would consider insignificant - you can imagine how that wouldn’t really strengthen my relationship with that person. In fact, if it goes on long enough, it might damage it. I’d be pissed off because he whines about what I consider to be nothing, and he would be pissed off because I belittled a problem that is very much really affecting him and making him unhappy.

This theory can explain a lot more than mere troublesome personal interactions. Ever wondered why people who live in third world countries often appear to be very happy and cheerful, even though they barely have a thing to eat and have to worry about whatever the hell they have to do to live through another day? Exactly - the state of being required to make them happy is a state of being that would put us rich and fat westerners three light years outside of our unhappiness borders.

Take the Theory of Infinite (Un)happiness into account whenever you deal with people, and trust me, it will make your life a lot easier. As soon as you actively realise that happiness and unhappiness are relative terms, you will make yourself a lot happier.