The Pursuit of Happiness…
I’m reading a book that I really, really like. It’s called In the Casa Azul and it’s by Meaghan Delahunt. It’s an historical novel about Frida Kahlo & Leon Trotsky. As I’m reading I keep dog-earing the pages, the poor book has half its pages folded now.
Here’s a paragraph that has been sticking with me since I read it:
Happiness. That line from the American Declaration of Independence about the pursuit of happiness. He thought it both facile and dangerous. He thought that this one line could be held responsible for all the unhappiness and hypocrisy of the Western world. As if happiness were a quarry, as if you could stalk it, pin it down, corner it. But happiness wasn’t like that. It came over you, descended; sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. It was as intangible as mist. Something numinous. And then it was gone.
