Snapshots of Happiness
A new year is coming along and it got me thinking. You know, the usual “what am I thankful for?”. Pretty cliché, but this year has been such a rough one, so why not ask myself? Around the holidays, when the school break allows you to set your mind on something else and actually notice what’s around you, I began to see this famous beauty of the world we talk so much about.
See the sun rising upon foggy fields from the window of the train
Play endless card games over and over again with your friends, arguing about who’s the best player because it’s raining outside and you simply got nothing better to do
Cook a Christmas dinner with your sister planned for 4 people but that is really for 20
State the fact that sliding in the snow never gets old
Get a drink with your friends after exams as a reward
Have cosy movie nights when they come over
Complain until 4 in the morning with a friend only because we are afraid for our future
Dream about those gigantic flats across the street but really enjoying your mini-studio and its view upon the roofs
Notice funny details while walking in the streets
Forget all your troubles when your best friend tells you the right thing at the right time
Invent a whole story from the shape of the clouds
Never get tired of sunsets magic
Be obsessed with the raindrops rolling over the window while sipping a cup of tea
Take millions of photographs
Look at people in the street and see how happy they can be
Look at them dancing on the docks
And dance in return, enjoying being alive
The conclusion of it all, brought to me by a starry plane ride of memories? Life can be damn beautiful when we let it be so.
I’m probably more defining happiness than beauty here. But those tricky notions are, of course, intrinsically linked. Beauty produces happiness and happiness produces beauty. Now, you decide what you think is beautiful.
In the very origins of the word, beauty came from Latin “bellitas” which designates “the state of something being pleasing to the senses”. Here’s how I hear it: beauty is what drives you. Because where lies beauty, lies sense. Would you want to get up in the morning if you knew you wouldn’t be able to find anything beautiful?
I took the habit of always having my camera with me. Every day I carry it around, hoping to pull it out when the right moment comes. It makes my bag a little heavier and I don’t use it every day ’cause sometimes I’m just not in the mood of looking around or I chose to keep some beauties only in my head. But searching for beauty one day after the other gives me a lot more occasions to smile. And so I carry my camera no matter what. You never know.