I had been contemplating for a long time on how everything is suffering, so I decide to flip the issue a bit and ask a new question — what do I think happiness is?

At some point it dawned on me that sukkah arises from a wrong perception of what things actually are. Happiness is just a misunderstanding.

Back when I had my Porsche, it frequently made me happy. Cruising along, top down, wind blowing in my hair, I felt so alive, so on-top-and-in-control of my life.  Because I was so sure that car confirmed me, my power, my worthiness, it brought me joy. I can still recall those moments of electrifying pride. Happiness.

But, when I went to sell the car, the dealership found a mechanical problem. I ended up having to sell it for so much less than I had paid, so much less than I thought it was worth, so much less than I thought it proved I was worth. Standing in the dealership that day, I felt deceived by the car; all those years I thought it had proven my awesomeness, my control, but now it made me feel a fool. Someone so ignorant, I didn’t even know my own car was sick. Someone so not-on-top, that I let something precious go to shit.

On the way home from the dealership, I mourned. I also contemplated. I likened the situation to a woman who felt so affirmed, so loved, by their lover only to realize that he was cheating. That she was one of many of his women. And, I put myself in her shoes, feeling that, in that moment of realization, all the sense of special that lover had imbued me with was drained away, leaving me feeling crushed, used.

The point here is that I read ‘special’ as the message of my objects — cars, lovers — and it makes me happy. But what if I later learn that those things never made me special at all? Doesn’t it follow that my happiness was based only off a misunderstanding of what I think things are/mean.

When I was moving from SF to NY, Eric and I took a 3 week vacation between departing California and arriving in NY. For those few weeks, as I lay on the beach soaking up the Mediterranean sunshine, I fantasized about the exciting new life waiting for me in NY. I was happy, for a brief moment, till I landed at JFK and the rude, filthy, loud reality of New York intruded on my happy imaginings.

Happiness is born when my imagination interprets some ‘signs’ I see right now as proof that I am the Alana I want to be, and the future will be the future I want it to be. But this is like reading tea leaves; I fantasize some meaning into something that can’t really hold or fulfill that meaning at all. It’s just a tea leaf. It’s just a car, it’s just a lover, it’s just a place that I live. The future will be whatever it will be without regard to either what I want it to be, or what I imagine it will be. Sukkha is just a side effect of my misreading reality.