Cheerfulness has many faces and siblings: dancing lightness – even when sitting
infectious cheerfulness – even without words
spontaneous cheerfulness – even alone with yourself
sunny confidence – even at night
gentle humour – even in anger
quiet happiness – even in bad luck
peaceful serenity – even in stress
comprehensive composure – even before an operation
health – even when ill, and
FEARLESSNESS.
Always smiling, always cheerful,
but what it looks like inside
is nobody’s business.
Fanz Lehár, Land of Smiles.
Write an article about cheerfulness? … That should be cheerful!
Early morning at 6.30 a.m. As usual I write as soon as I wake up. Last night I had an exciting dream. I want to write it down before I make morning tea downstairs in the kitchen.
I was in a large crowd of people. A huge artificial hard disc came floating down from the sky like a UFO and hovering about us, offered everyone a small new hard drive by which verything was deleted, all the karma, all the problems: Reset! With the new hard drive, we could start all over again. Most people happily accepted it. There was nothing compulsory about it. We could refuse it, but then we would have to justify to seemingly customs or border officials. I didn’t want a new hard drive so I refused, as I found my artistic research life more attractive. There were only a few who didn’t accept it. We joked with those who opted for the reprogramming: Don’t worry, it only lasts one incarnation, then nature will reclaim you and you’ll be one karmic experience richer.
That was the essence of the dream.
After I had written this down, I walked down 18 steps to the kitchen to brew myself some tea and then wanted to continue writing. I’ve been thinking about a text on ‘Cheerfulness’ for LOGON No. 19 for a while now. That could be cheerful! … yes, writing about cheerfulness is a serious thing,’ I grinned to myself.
Then I spontaneously thought of another approach: ‘ … Why don’t you be cheerful and not in such a gloomy mood!’ Cheerfulness as a mood enhancer? … Yes, we know that, I would like to explore it further. What interests me about this topic is the ‘placebo effect’, and we put ourselves in a cheerful mood without fooling ourselves or others? To put it another way: do we change our mood if we consciously pretend to be cheerful, if we persuade ourselves to smile despite being in a miserable mood? It’s best to try it out!
When I was 12 years old, I visited my aunt in Basel who gave me a ticket to the operetta The Land of Smiles by Franz Lehár. The tenor’s key line was: ‘Always smiling, always happy, but what it looks like inside is nobody’s business’.
I felt sorry for the man, having to sing that in front of everyone. I knew instantly that I didn’t want to be an operetta singer. Nevertheless, his statement confused me and made a lasting impression. Didn’t that mean that his smile, his expression of amusement, and his cheerfulness was a mask, a disguise, a fake outward appearance? Apparently the as-if effect didn’t work for him. Instead, he praised a concept of behaviour in which the inside must remain hidden and concealed because it would be far too dangerous to show the feelings that are really there. Here is the entire text:
However, as Confucius already says in all wisdom, whatever you feel, do not betray yourself … always smile, always be content, whatever may come.
Smile despite ache and a thousand pains … But what it looks like inside is nobody’s business … never show your true colours.
Poker face then? Just don’t lose face by showing your true colours. I will continue to explore this idea. It wasn’t just the tea water but my head was also boiling – I was in a hurry to get back upstairs to my high-tech typewriter. I hurried up the 18-step oak staircase with a full tray of tea and oat biscuits so as not to lose my idea about cheerfulness, but to feed it straight into the computer. Then it happened: I tripped on the stairs … the cup on the tray fell over … the hot tea spilt. I instinctively held on to the porcelain cup designed by my Art professor Gerhard Collwitzer: ‘I’d rather spill the tea than break the cup,’ What a funny situation! I had rushed up the stairs in a euphoric mood to write about cheerfulness … and stumbled. What else could I do? I had to laugh, cleaned up the tea, and then – finally – wrote this.
I admit this is a somewhat stumbling introduction to the topic of cheerfulness. But isn’t stumbling an important part of a clown’s repertoire? Stumbling is amusing, especially when someone strides along purposefully or rushes up the stairs overzealously. Stumbling relativises the oh-so-consciousness. Wouldn’t anger have been more natural and honest? Surely.
Presumably, an intelligence trained by experience knew that anger only makes things worse. A creative, inner control instrument is quickly deployed whose maxim could go something like this: ‘If something so annoying is already happening, then you don’t have to get angry about it as well!’
Dancing lightness – even when sitting
How can we reach this state in all circumstances which may be anything but cheerful – when trouble has us by the scruff of the neck?
Let’s take another quick look at the operetta tenor’s recipe: Always smile, always be cheerful, but how it looks inside is nobody’s business.’
In Western cultural terms, this initially sounds like drama, self-deception and hypocrisy. However, it also refers to the virtue of self-control, which is highly valued in Eastern traditions. Not letting everything out straight away does not have to be hypocritical, but can also be socially valuable, life-smart as well as friendly and beneficial. A certain control or the ability to direct feelings and thoughts, is helpful in any case, and also to enable and radiate a state of serenity – that beautiful sunny mood – within oneself. If the operetta singer would work on these two irreconcilable opposites, smiling and hidden pain in his inner heart and consciousness workshop instead of skillfully lamenting his status quo in front of an audience, something could come of it … yes, it could be cheerful!
The universe is helping
And what about the as-if method? Activating the self-suggestive powers through conscious positive projections, with the mantram ‘It will work!’
How? Is it through a mere wish that God or the universe, should fulfill?
No, it takes a certain willingness to learn and creative personal endeavour to create a dynamic and fruitful field of tension from the contradictions between which human beings oscillate. The universe – i.e. God – has not brought forth this complex, creative human being to shower it with blessings which – in passive consumption and lazy complacency – is confused with devotion. Or to provide new technical hard drives that will solve all problems that humans have brought upon themselves. This is where the divine, i.e. the universe, can sink in, express itself, unfold further and reveal itself in spontaneous action.
This unquestionably requires the joyful co-operation of the whole person to do everything possible so that the impossible, can succeed. That sounds paradoxical and it is. A paradox is precisely what activates the two poles of a whole at the same time. Enduring ambiguity (oppositeness) and recognising it as a creative field moves the inner orientation away from the dualistic pendulum movement from good to evil and back again. This allows an experience where the paradoxical simultaneity of contradictions is not at odds with each other, but complements one another to form a creative field of life. All emotional, mental and unconscious forces then come together at the inner workplace in the concentration of an action, an attitude. When the striving person stumbles towards happy success, their wishes for the ‘universe’ are usually fulfilled in a surprisingly, unimaginable way.
Such a polarized mood arising between absolute security in the universal and divine and the realisation of one’s own limitations, could be the serenity that enriches life in all of its facets e ven with tea and oat biscuits or perhaps with new technical hard discs – or rather porcelain discs full of appetising fruit, food and spring flowers.
