What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.
If all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stack in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of before that which would fall to them by such a division.
You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.
The Myth of the Angry White Male What has sprung up is a strange kind of thinking. . . . Americans are unhappy with their lot. They are feeling insecure - layoffs and corporate downsizing have made their future uncertain. Stirred up by talk radio, the theory goes, large numbers of formerly sensible people have embraced 'hate' and 'extremism.' Most of these, according to the media, are white guys. A Washington Post/ABC pre-election poll asked voters if they were angry 'about the way the federal government works.' Four out of five white males said no. 62 percent of white men voted for Republican House candidates (38 percent for Democrats in 1994, a ten-point increase from the 1990 midterm elections). But was this special to their gender? In 1994 white women voted for Republican House candidates by a 55 to 45 percent majority. Significantly, there isn't single article decrying 'angry white females.'
Happiness is always a byproduct. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
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