One of my favorite people introduced me to a song recently that I've put on replay. The chorus goes like this:
This is happiness,
to be everything at once:
Be unblinded, be unlearned,
be unbridled, and unburned.
And as those lyrics stuck on repeat in my mind, I started to contemplate them seriously. It struck me as odd that happiness could be lacking in education. In fact, it confused me that the song would focus on all the negative terms. Why say be “Unblinded” instead of saying something to the effect of having sight? Of course, then the song would say “Be sightful, be ignorant, be free, and raw.” And certainly that isn’t the same thing, but it brings us to another section of the lyrics:
We’re branded and we’re burdened from the moment we are born.
We’re domestic and we’re discontent, and we’re grinding our gums raw.
Forget your feet and where they fall, lift your head and carry on.
Hearing the start of this verse, I felt it to be a bit depressing, but as I got to the end, I understood:
No fear, just faith, no bit, just break the path and let it lead you.
Unknown, unblind, run free, run wild and leave behind what holds you down.
We are all born with burdens on our shoulders. They’re hidden in our DNA, and it’s the load upon each parents shoulders that will someday tumble onto ours. Time will brand us as adults someday; sickness will mark us as invalids along the way; and we will mark ourselves every day of our lives with sorrows, mistakes, regrets, and so many things that scar our hearts.
That’s why they’re “un” words.
We are not capable of living entirely free, constantly at peace, only knowing what we wish to, yet clearly seeing everything around us with a heart full of appreciation, all the while remaining emotionally whole. That was never an option. There will always be burdens. We must always be learning hard truths. Everyone is restrained by things. And we all get hurt.
But we have to take all of those things, and move past them. “Un”do what they have done to us, and be happy in the midst of it all. Happiness isn’t to have a perfect life. Happiness is to be everything at once. Even sad. Even wrong. Even free, when we feel bound. Even faithful, when we are afraid.
Even happy.
Happiness is to be alive and to feel all the burdens and freedoms that come with that, all at once. And that’s life too. So I guess happiness is just life. We just have to be willing to seize it.
Carpe diem, carpe vitam!
