Happiness

I can barely walk, I have no friends and family left, and I am poor, but does that mean I can't be happy? One might think that in those circumstances happiness would be impossible, but when things are that bad, why should I make it worse by being sad? It's very tempting to sink into an all-consuming despair, but then I would miss out on the cosmic joke that we know as the planet Earth. God tries to make it as funny as can be, so I think I would be ungrateful if I just thought about my miserable condition and missed the punchline. That would truly make me sad. Still, maybe if I killed myself, that might be funny, in some sick way that only a divine intelligence could fathom. But I don't think that's true, so I'll trudge along, in my pain and woe, and I think all the angels in Heaven will find that humorous. I sure hope so. If my life was a movie, this would be the end of the second act and the fabulous climax will soon begin to unfold. Or maybe it's the beginning of the second act, and something really funny will happen soon. That would be great. I'll prefer that, but I can only write my part. So far, all the billionaires who I should be hanging out with have failed to make their appearance, which I think is rather unsporting of them. The only thing that will protect their fortunes is if they start hanging out with bums on street corners. Not just give to charities and go back to their mansions, but actually go to Skid Row with a bottle of some fabulous wine from 1927 and really connect with those who society has crapped on. The world would be a better place if Jeffery Bezos went to a crackhouse and got everyone there high. People's opinion of him would rise; I'm sure it wouldn't get any lower. So I am listening to a recording of Prokofiev playing his own 3rd Piano concerto, with the London Symphony orchestra, and it is truly wonderful. The tempo is much quicker than other versions, which I find wonderful. It makes me wonder why some maestros insist on slowing music down. For example, when von Karajan conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in Beethoven's 7th Symphony, it comes in around 35 minutes, whereas other conductors drag it out to over 40 minutes. I have to believe that von Karajan is the only one willing to play it the way it was written, just as Prokofiev was best able to judge how fast his concerto should be. I'm sure it amused old Sergei that the orchestra could barely keep up with him, but now the piece gets dragged out to over half an hour. It still sounds good, but it makes me think that, for some reason, someone has ordained that classical music should be played as slow as possible, so that any excitement can't be found. Is excitement a bad thing to the wealthy patrons who make up the major part of the audience? If they can't hack it, they should be hanging out in the park and smoking weed with some derelicts. That would the necessary jolt that their poor, little rich lives are missing.