Happiness and Cats

Hello my little ragamuffins. 

I do hope you're having a blast. Figuratively, not literally. That would be awful.

My last video - Now You Happy Always Maybe - seemed to have a bit of discussion going on in the comments and I guess I wanted to reply properly. For once. I usually don't do this. It's pretentious and irritating, and if you have to explain your fucking points after the video you probably didn't make a very good video. But this one does bear a bit of clarification. 

One day I was watching a family walking up my road in Sofia and they looked fairly middle class. There were two small humans and two larger humans, all well-dressed. They looked in an okay mood but not crazy happy. It got me thinking about how you could have all the mental gifts and financial status and still feel like crap. And that I'm at the best point of my life so far and I still get blue now and then, as does everyone. And that got me thinking that perhaps it's normal. And if it is normal, why...?

So that was that. I didn't mean to say in any way that we're destined to be depressed. I know loads of content folk, young and old. I know lots of miserable folk, young and old. It appears to partly be mindset, lifestyle, random chance, and genetics. There doesn't seem to be a simpler answer, unfortunately. 

In my own life, I can only say that regular intense exercise, a nice social group, romantic stuff, making stuff, and adventures are what keeps me sane and happy. I suspect it might be the same for you. So that was all I was really trying to get across. 

The older I get, the further away I move from thinking the conditions for happiness are super specific for everyone. I really doubt they are. We have such common genetics, and such a common evolutionary history. What evolution cared about, we cared about: food, respect, sexytimes, purpose, creativity, etc. It seems that way in any case. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always cats. I have a cat. Did I mention I have a cat? Just in case not: I have a cat.  

The editing of the book is going fine, if you were interested. Some days you want to throw the laptop out the window, run downstairs and burn it, but you hold back. Other days you've had enough coffee and everything's fine. Not long now. I hope. You will of course be the first to know when it’s out.

So, something I generally never ask on here: where do you want the channel to go? No, I hate it when people say that. It isn't a channel. It's me. I'm sat right here in my living room in my underwear with the cat. She is not wearing underwear. A new podcast is in development (if I can secure someone interesting to chat to, suggestions welcome), the audiobooks are in development, new videos are always being worked on, and I'm trying to finish an album of piano music. What else would tickle your pickle? Some of you would like to chat on Skype and I'm more than happy to do that. Shall we do a livestream some time? Shall we saunter about in a meadow somewhere? I'm all ears. 

At some point in the near future I would imagine the channel is going to hit 500,000 subscribers. I generally don’t keep track of the numbers, but in this case I think I’ll take notice. I’m toying with the idea of a Q&A video. I’d prefer not to bang on about myself and my life, but if you have any burning questions, feel free to ping them my way and I’ll see what I can do.

So. That’s the happy haps for now. 

I hope your life is coming along spiffingly and has cats in it. If it isn’t coming along spiffingly then I hope it still has cats in it. 

As always, an absolutely huge thank you for the continued support. When the book finally is finished, it will have entirely been because of your loveliness. Man, if you don’t like the thing, that’s going to be awkward. In any case, I’m more grateful than I can say and you are essentially the reason I’m able to keep doing this. 

Best wishes from your friendly neighbourhood space turtle, 

Ex.  

P.S. - Please enjoy this free and completely irrelevant mystery link.