The Importance Of Being Unhappy

The most corrosive aspect of social media like Facebook is this: unhappiness is treated like a disease.

As an American, you are not guaranteed happiness- only the pursuit of it. Practically every single person on Earth has differing ideas about what makes them happy. If you appear unhappy to others, their reactions will range from concern to disgust (see above). Your family will either try to “fix” you, reject you, or hand you over to medical personnel.

For some weird reason, you’re “not supposed” to be unhappy.

Let me let you in on a little secret.

No one is happy.

Nobody, except possibly teenage girls who haven’t been hurt yet, and wealthy sociopaths. Everyone else is miserable. Your favorite bands contain people that hate each other. Your favorite movies star people that abused and crippled themselves, and are primarily dead. When they were alive, they were belligerent and unpleasant. The smiles and tinsel are all a facade.

It’s like the Three Stooges, or Abbott & Costello; we only saw the “happy” stuff. In reality, their lives were sheer hell.

The greatest literature was written by men and women who could barely stand people, and had terrible diets. They drank until they died. Sometimes they married and brutalized each other. Orson Welles was one of the last literate men in television, and he embittered into a bloated wineskin. Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald; these dudes were all miserable. 

The best comedians are all a nut-hair away from suicide. They are black holes of unhappiness and malaise. That’s why they’re so good at what they do; they’re still trying to convince themselves. Laughter proves their worth. In the past few years, there’s been a disconcerting influx of unfunny attractive people appearing as stand-ups. Audiences inevitably reject this, because if you’re pretty, what the fuck business do you have being funny?

All the biggest phonies sell the same image; that they’re happier than everyone else. Happier than you.

They’re not. They’ve just become an image. An entity. When was the last time anyone cared about Julia Roberts’ acting? How about Howard Stern’s comedy?

Here’s how I can prove my point: Madonna threatened to blow up the White House.

That’s the moment where it’s indisputable that she is a fraud. She’s a hopelessly spoiled asshole, an attention whore par excellence, whose past successes were total flukes. When the going gets tough, she turns into the squalling mental case she always was. She hasn’t made a decent song since the 1980s, and she knows it. She’ll never be relevant again, or even borderline intelligent. Safe shock is all she is.

See what a better person than her you are? All she did was fill a void. Whoever you are, you’ve done more with your life in the past year than Madonna did in the past three. Give yourself a hand.

My goal as a cartoonist is the same as a comedian’s; to make people laugh. It’s not easy, because you can’t copy material that’s come before, and audiences will burn you if they find out you did. This is a weird, modern thing, which runs counter to the way jokes and humor used to spread.

From someone who’s never done it, here’s what a stand-up comedian does.

1. Writes or develops 15 to 45 minutes of material.
2. Performs that material over roughly a year, in front of an audience, making occasional tweaks.

Depending on how good you are, you can go from there to television, movies, or political office. Sounds easy, right?

Try it. 

Fifteen minutes of material, in front of a live audience. Think of the most embarrassing thing about your appearance; now imagine someone in the crowd shouting it out in the middle of your act. Oh yeah- you ain’t gettin’ paid. The club owner will come up with a way to screw you. Bet on it, with the money you don’t have.

Can you deliver fifteen minutes of original material under those circumstances, and be funny? I hope so, or your time in the spotlight will be very brief. If your motivation is anything other than making people laugh, quit. Go into real estate. A home is a thousand times easier to sell than a laugh.

No stand-up comedian can cough up an hour of A-material a year. Not Pryor, not Carlin, not nobody. Jay Leno is probably the most successful comedian living, and he’s got a team of writers for his nightly monologue. Think about the way the entertainment industry currently operates, compared to fifty years ago, regarding comedy. Everything is pretty people acting uncharacteristically zany. A big-breasted woman bounces through the average sitcom, but now, you’re not supposed to notice her assets. Studio audiences are vetted and forbidden to whistle when she enters.

“Objectification” of women is also discouraged, which never works. Here’s why: when you present something as an object, it is normally taken as an object. A person on a screen is an object, regardless of gender. They are a cog in the machine of the film. They do not exist outside of the parameters of the piece. Anything that extends beyond that comes from you. 

Okay? Do you understand what I’m saying? You might not, because the line has become so utterly blurred where acting is concerned. When Jennifer Lawrence stars in a movie, it becomes a Jennifer Lawrence movie. That means it doesn’t make a shit what role she plays. It’s just part of the promotion of a person-company. That’s why you can read articles in magazines about how happy Jennifer Lawrence is. Jennifer Lawrence should be getting pissed on in a Lars von Trier film. You’re an actress; you’re supposed to be honing your instrument, for fuck’s sake. Who gives a fuck if you’re smiling proudly on the red carpet? Whoopee, you’re rich and famous. I’d crack a smile too, in your gilded shoes. How else can everyone see your expensive teeth?

Remember when the teeth of an entertainer didn’t matter, unless they were huge, and it became part of the act?

Now there’s an entire industry based on shaming people into cosmetic dental surgery. That’s great, because when I listen to George Carlin or Richard Pryor, I can hear how white their teeth are in their classic routines. That’s why they’re so funny, right?

Truthfully, I face a conundrum with this website, and its accompanying comic strip. Every time I write about my own obscure fields of knowledge, I give away another piece of myself. There is the very real possibility that one day there won’t be anything left. So what? Why keep it to myself? I don’t get rich doing it. I don’t get rich doing anything.

Because you may be even more miserable than I am, that’s why. 

Every morning, I push through four layers of rage, despair, contempt, and depression, and I don’t always make it. Most of the time I do, and I’m able to produce something positive (cartoon/joke). Some nights I lie awake thinking to myself, “if I had a gun, this would be it.” This isn’t bad- it’s the way it is. Early in my life, I tuned my emotion receptors sky high. I’m now a goddamn empath. I’m not kidding, dude. If you spend your life entertaining people, and writing sagas about their imaginary lives, this is what happens. Unless, at heart, you don’t really give a fuck.

The only unhappiness that is bad is that which makes you unproductive. If my depression gets out of control, I lie down on my bed and become catatonic. This is rare, but it’s the reason I have to seek medication for depression (pot). Then I can organically work my way out of the “funk”, by trying to make people laugh, instead of alienating them. Hence the strip, the site, me.

I don’t regret confessing this; I just gave you a little peek behind the curtain. Too often nowadays I see depression treated as something finite, a phase that will eventually be outgrown. That’s unrealistic when it comes to creative people. Depression is the spur, the impetus that fuels the pursuit of a “better life”, whatever that may be. The very idea of unhappiness is meaningless.

After all, what is happiness, other than a finish line? And what is money, other than enslavement?

Cheer up a bit, kids. But remember; if you’re miserable, it just means you’re alive, and paying attention.