Are we happy because we have money? Is it because we have one another? Or, at the very least, anyone to care about? Or, is the nature of happiness founded in the mere fact that we open our eyes and we get to see the sky today? I had an old colleague say to me years ago, on the road, that “if I open my eyes and I see the sky, today, I win.” I think about that often. What is it about this thing we call existence that makes us grateful to be here? Are we just merely happy because we are allowed to be on this side of the dirt or are we really just happy to know that we get to wake up and see the people we love again?

All of existence seems very existential. We exist not because we chose to be here. That choice was made a long time ago, for us. Efficient causality if you believe in Aquinas. That thing that, whether you want to call it big bang or gods or whatever makes you happy to grant you reprieve from looking too closely at the fingerprints of our existence that allow you to get on with your day.

So much of life is about decisions. We choose our coffee or tea or whatever the fuck you drink in the morning. We choose the thing we shove into our maw to help us exist, but what gave us the ability to do that long before we got here? Not just our parents but our parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ and so on and so on and so on’s parents’? We never were given a choice where we are now. Yet, we are expected to be viable and loving and coherent and capable.

When did we get to accept that responsibility?