Throughout my life, I have heard people be praised when they known to be always smiling or consistently happy people. Growing up, I thought this was a good quality to have. It was someone who you thought maybe had it more together than you, someone who had figured something out about life that you hadn’t yet. But now that I am older and have seen more of life, albeit only twenty six years but that’s still some time on this treacherous rock, I have learned maybe this isn’t something to be desired.
I was listening to an album by Kota the Friend and there was an interlude talking about someone who was always smiling. No matter what they were going through, they were noted as always smiling and being happy. As I heard this I wondered, isn’t that also someone who could be described as insane? I picture Heath Ledger in his Joker character, “let’s put a smile on that face!” Should’t we acknowledge bad times?
If someone is always smiling isn’t that disregarding reality? Shouldn’t we be sad sometimes, even showing it? It seems there is something human about that, something that relates to people. It seems fake to be smiling and always happy. Like why can’t you be sad? It actually pisses me off sometimes. While it could be something wrong with me, I just want to see them actually be upset for once. Like acknowledge that sometimes things aren’t right. Sometimes things are broken and hurt you. Sometimes it is hard to smile and sometimes you don’t want to. BE SAD YOU PIECE OF SHIT!