I heard somewhere that the literal translation of happy, in Japanese, is quick pleasure. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it serves my purpose, so I’m going to assume it is.

It’s a complex cake, happiness. In different places, at different times, it’s been made different ways. People used to make it in more of a whole grain, stone ground, bread format… But today it’s cake! We eat it; and it’s sweet; and we like it; and we want more of it; and it gets us all wound up; then it leaves us to crash… Our cake is heavy on pleasure light on substance.

I mean the world is pleasure central these days… If you live in one of the nice places, but we can’t all live like this – at least not right now – not with all that’s going on over there – and my representative says their sending aid, coordinating with the UN and Europe, because something must be done – it’s in committee – and not too much about the ethnic cleansing in that…. Ohh, The View is on :)!

TV is pretty great, right? Boy, it sure is flashy. 11 minutes of actual play in an American football game. The rest is adds and shots of guys walking around in helmets and spandex getting talked to by other guys with head sets and clip boards… Oh, and there’s also the guys in suits talking about the spandex and clip boards… Oooh, the new iphone will go down on me in the shower and has an angry ex girlfriend app (the non-ironic song lyrics are a hack)(cross reference of no less than four shared commercial experiences… Priceless)(make that five!).

Well, watching all those fit fellows and their commercials for attractive people has left me feeling empty. Things could be better. Something seems to be missing from my life. Let’s go shopping. In the developed world the act of buying is an act of malcontent. We rarely buy out of need. We buy to replace. Because I’m not happy now, but if I get the new Android with my NSA discount points, I will be… Happiness = quick pleasure.

The people in the poor countries are miserable because they can’t support basic living (food, shelter, water). The people in the rich countries are miserable because we don’t know the basics of living. You can’t consume your way to contentment.

Bread has two ingredients – physical security (food, water, shelter), and connection to trust worthy loving people.