An Answer to Sunny...

My take on today's post by Sunny. (Thanks for the idea!) I'm not going to re-hash the original article, because most of my (three or four) regular readers also frequent Sunny's blog. (It's kind of nice having a small, tight-knit reading community.)

Her commentary got me thinking though... wow, I too have been blogging for a long time, (passing thought) and my writing path isn't horribly dissimilar from hers. It used to be simple to find a story on the internet, and then twist it into something worthy of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. At one time, it was child's play to construct a diatribe against my perceived grievances against society. Now, I'm lucky if I can post something weekly, and even that's usually about as interesting as "I went to the store and bought some milk today." The part of Sunny's post that I really want to address though is her perception that she's changed. I have a few thoughts about changing...

I believe that it's human nature to change. I'm not the same person I was five years ago, and I'm even more dissimilar to the person I was a decade ago. We are the summary of our experiences, so the only way we can cease changing is to stop having new experiences. In other words, if you're not evolving, you're stagnating. Change may be painful at times, but that pain can serve as a reminder that you're alive... that you're growing... that you're evolving.

I also think that our moods tend to flatten out over time. Think back to when you were ten... fifteen... twenty... (and if you can't remember back that far, think about when your kids were that age) didn't everything seem to be either wonderful or terrible? As we get older, things aren't always black and white, there are shades of gray... and as we get older yet, I suspect that we'll find that a continually growing "shades of gray" mentality forces the "black and white" frame of mind to diminish to virtually zero. As a result, you don't express jubilation every day, but you don't feel despair as frequently either.

And your baseline mood can change. Think of the mood range as a scale of -10 to +10. The low end is the depth of despair... you can't sleep... you forget to eat... you want to die... The only thing that exists is the pain. The high end is bliss... you don't want to sleep... you can't stop laughing... colors are brighter... you don't want the moment to end... and you want to share it with everyone. At zero, you're neither happy nor sad. We all have our own baseline. Some people are usually a little unhappy... their baseline is -1, for example. For the sake of my point, we all have a baseline from -1 to +1, with most falling around zero. As we age, our baseline can -- and probably does -- change. It can be a single life-altering event, or a series of small things. And going back to my previous school of thought, I think that our baseline crystallizes as we age.

Sometimes though, external forces change our mood on a massive level. Think back to 9/11. Aside from the terrorists, the global mood was somber. It may be hard to remember, but for a brief period, virtually the entire world grieved with us. Think of the jubilation that many of us experienced with Obama's election to the White House. Look at our global economy now.

Here's my point to Sunny: I'm going to take your perception at face value. I'm not going to analyze whether or not you were happier a few years ago. But you're older... you've had a seriously life-altering experience... and the external mood is somber. You're not alone if your baseline is a little below zero, and it's not stuck there.