Operational Occupational Happiness…

with a tip 'o the lid to the Beagle on the roof...

“You don’t want it to look like you did it yourself,” is what the lady said, speaking on the subject of the cover art that will be a potential readers first impression of a work.  I understood her point before she made it, of course.  Amateur effort in a professional environment rarely fares well.  But still, what she said itched and in places that had nothing to do with formally publishing a story.  After a week or two of communing with the itch the truth behind the event oh so slowly made itself known.

“You don’t want it to look like you did it yourself.”  Like you did it yourself.  Why is that a bad thing?  What if I myself graduated cum laude from some prestigious university with a degree in the very subject at hand?  Is it ok for me to do it myself  then?  Or is this a more complicated issue than just a matter of competence?  I’m not sure, I’m really not.

What I have come to be very certain of though is this:  the only real satisfaction I’ve ever known has come from doing it myself.  It is such total bullshit to buy something and then try and feel it as your own.  You know you didn’t build it, paint it, write it, you know all you did was buy it like some horny sailor buying a piece of ass because a forty eight hour liberty in a strange city just isn’t enough time to actually find yourself a lover.  The self deception of trying to feel something you bought as being your own just sets a sour aftertaste on the whole subject.

Continuing on with the subject of Happiness Defined? If Happiness sailed as a fleet one of the battlewagons broadside to the foe is an unshakeable belief backed up by rational self assessment that what you did today was better than what you did yesterday and that tomorrow will be better still.  Doing it yourself, no matter what it is you’re doing,  is the only way you can have such a faith.  Of all things Happiness is a Do It Yourself operation.  No one else can do it for you, you can’t buy it out of the box and bolt it up and expect it to run.  In total contradiction of the damned by any decent God operatives of the advertising industry it just doesn’t work that way.  Sorry guys, the first pile of bullshit I’m not buying is that Happiness is a saleable commodity. It’s not.  You have to do it  yourself. 

Have I ever built myself a case of Happiness?  Almost but not quite, and getting closer everyday.  It’s the getting closer part that feels good.