How do you stay happy when things in the world are so terrible?

How do you stay happy when things in the world are so terrible?

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Preserving the sanctity of cinema. Subtitles preferred, mainstream dismissed, and always in search of yet another film you have never heard of. I speak fluent French New Wave.

Pick a happy persona.

Sometimes you just got to recognize shit happens and will continue to. We can't control everything. Recognize what you can control, do you best at it, and so what if that falls apart too. It's all just a learning curve to improve on something.


Surrounding yourself with more positive-minded people goes a long way too. Negativity creeps. And it's an anchor.

Watching this thread, as they say on Reddit. What I’m going to say below hasn’t been working that well for me lately, so take it with a grain of salt.

To answer your question: I listen to music, any and all sorts (I am not that selective, not just by your standards, Minio (I listen to pop, hip-hop, opera, anything), but I am constantly on the lookout for new music and update my library all the time, adding stuff. The old adage that one listens to music from one’s youth and doesn’t like new music definitely doesn’t apply to me).

I adore music and the worse things get (which, frankly I’ve had some experience with that in the last few years), the more I retreat into it. It used to be movies, but ironically, I can’t anymore. They require too much processing and they make me sad more often than not now, which isn’t the point.

As such, I listen to music, swap my headphones every now and then to keep them charged. When I’m in that zone, it physically gives me shivers. I get a scary rush of adrenaline and eargasms, as a great artist called it.

Without exaggeration, I must spend 19-20 hours a day listening to music. My library is pretty huge and on shuffle so it never gets old (thematically it must be weird, but I like going from Itzhak Perlman to Concrete Blonde to Metallica and not knowing what’s next).

I find myself foregoing films for music more and more (scandalous, I know), so in the evening I just sit on my porch with my music.

But this isn’t for everyone. My mother who trained as a professional violinist says she couldn’t do this because this ‘wears out’ music for her. I don’t relate to this. She also thinks working to music cheapens it which I understand, but I’ve never enjoyed a song any less just because I’d previously written an article or a short story to it.

You should be happy things aren't even worse.

Like, we could be living in a post-nuclear holocaust.

Can you elaborate, Rules?

Interesting topic, and a question I've struggled with most of my life.

It's natural to feel a sense of guilt if you feel happy while there is so much suffering in the world, and there is always suffering, usually more and at levels none of us can even imagine what with 8 billion people on the planet. In light of such a reality, it would make sense to NEVER feel happy (and thus avoid the feelings of guilt), but more importantly to express your virtue and compassion towards others' suffering.

But then where would you be? Miserable all the time and only adding to the world's suffering rather than lessening it. You'd become one of the billions of reasons others can't feel happy or feel guilty about feeling happy.

There is no easy answer for this one, but realize that those who struggle with this problem are the truly compassionate and empathetic people - and being such makes you special (at least compared to those who only seek pleasure for themselves and never consider the pain of others).

Just asking this question means you are one of the people who can and will make a difference in the world!

Best advice is to take action - help people; volunteer, donate, give of yourself, lend an ear to others, be a good friend, neighbor or relative. Practice both random and targeted / intentional acts of kindness.

It's the lesson from Groundhog Day once again... you don't do it just to alleviate your guilt or to impress others or to appear righteous, but because you begin to realize that doing good for goodness sake is the key to free yourself from the prison of suffering, from being brought down by all the terribleness in the world & to allowing yourself to feel happiness despite the world.

Then take some satisfaction in the fact that you are contributing to positive changes rather than adding to all the misery.

This thread reminded me of this

I agree about wallowing. Grief, sorrow, pain, compassion, empathy - are natural aspects of the emotional spectrum. It's not normal to be happy all of the time or even most of the time. There is time to feel bad & times to feel sad. (Yikes, I sound like Mr. Rogers!)

As to Gotham & Metropolis... they are different places. Granted, in the early days of comics, they were both based on real-life New York City, but in their fictional continuity, they are both large cities on or near the east coast, while NYC exists also in the DC Universe.

Typically, Metropolis is thought to be more modern, bright and clean, with giant gleaming skyscrapers, while Gotham is thought to be more gothic (with things like gargoyles decorating buildings), older, dirtier, seedier and darker.

(Trivia: in the Superman movie of 1978 & its sequels, footage of NYC was largely used to represent Metropolis, while in virtually all of the Batman films, Gotham was created by the filmmakers.)

Not to engage in a comics history lesson (but I can't help myself).

Marvel Comics (home of Spider-Man & Dr. Strange) started out their superhero age (a.k.a. the Silver Age circa 1960's) by having most of their characters based in our reality. In other words, their stories took place in real locations. Most of their superheroes operated in New York City. (Marvel has no aversion to creating fictional places, but initially were thought to bring a greater sense of realism to comics by having them take place in real cities and within a single reality where characters would meet.)

DC Comics (the older company: home of Superman & Batman) started out almost the opposite way with the majority of their characters having their own fictional cities. And at the start of the Golden Age (circa late 1930's to 1950's) characters didn't usually share stories or meet, that is until the first super-team: The Justice Society of America.
DC would later include plenty of real places among their plethora of fictional towns & cities (not to mention multiple universes, multiple Earths, then single continuities, then multiple ones again - far to complicated to try to explain).

But I think we can honestly attribute the first speculations on "String Theory" to DC Comics during their Silver Age.

Yet another thread descending into comic book talk.

"The vastness is only bearable through love."

That's a more specific answer, but it has a much wider application because the logic works the same: instead of trying to comprehend everything, you spend time trying to comprehend one person closest to you. And instead of trying to encapsulate the unfathomable size and scope of creation, or reckon with all the problems of the world, you should similarly narrow your view, at least most of the time, to the people and things immediately around you and/or the things you can feasibly understand and control.

Paradoxically, one of the things that will make you happier is to accept that you're not always supposed to be happy. Mankind's suffering is special in that it can be amplified by pondering itself, but if you can sit back and say "I'm not very happy right now" and just find good ways to pass that time, you'll find yourself happier more.

There's more, but I could go on forever, and that probably wouldn't make either of us happy.

Oh, and make sure to rule out boring, non-existential reasons for sadness or ennui: drink water, get enough sleep, eat better, get some freakin' sunlight, do a little exercise.

Sometimes you'll still just feel bad, but rule all those reasons out first. And no, you can't rule them out just by thinking about them. You literally have to do all those things to know whether that's the reason (or, more likely, part of the reason). It's amazing how much more manageable the big things seem when you take care of the little things.

I must be one big SOB because I'm happy most of the time and I do know the world is all screwed up. I just don't dwell on it.

The key is to shut off the f****** news! I'm serious, people who watch a lot of news internalize all the suffering and problems of the world and get angry, fearful and stressed out. I'm not kidding, be your own universe.

Just like movies these days!

I didn’t mean anything bitchy Just an observation. Peace and love from me.

Acceptance without expectation. I can't change the world around me, and if I really want to be miserable it's when I try to. Only by changing how we view things can serenity be attained. Is the glass of water half full or half empty? Neither. The answer is you have water. Some of the happiest people in the world have no wealth whatsoever, and the richest feel empty, only compensating by a lavish exterior. Those poor people enjoy a meal and are happier for it than the rich persons overpriced plate. Be thankful for what you have now because nothing is permanent. Things, money, a great lover, etc... they only equal to temporary excitement which will always fade. Happiness comes from within. We ruin it by wanting more, or something new. A lottery winner could be living in misery weeks after winning. Many go bankrupt because of want and more, a hole within ourselves unable to be filled. It's not the world, it's the hole inside ourselves which keeps us from being happy. Growth always takes place outside our comfort zone. Let go of your fear of lost leisure and live. Once we become stronger it takes less to make us happy. Life is more vast than we allow it to be. Again, it's not the world, it's us. The only way I can make the world better is being a better person. Then I can be happy in the in-between from the inevitable good or bad times. I'm happy and content in the normal then when before it just equalled discontentment.

Totally cool. If it were up to me, every conversation would involve comic books (and how the people who turn them into movies these days are just obsessed with race and trying to appear not to be racist by changing a major percentage of characters' ethnicities - which is really just another form of racism)!

Heh, you know what, that side of things I would talk about. And I do love all things Joker. I ain’t hopeless!

We have entire threads devoted to that subject!