Whatever Works 7-18-09

I was reading the description for the movie "Whatever Works" by Woody Allen and played by Larry David and thought to myself, "I try to be a feel good person but don't always succeed." I think there was a quote from a description of the movie something like, "Boris is not a feel good person." I have always liked Woody Allen movies, they are intellectual and funnily neurotic always in a New York sort of way. You sort of get the feeling that this person always maybe spent too much time in the city alone in his room growing up in New York. But that is also the precious intelligent side to Woody Allen's movies too. Any intelligent person can usually relate to some of the funny predicaments his charactors get into.

Growing up I was always suspicious of people who were always happy. Later I found that most of them were nuts. But to some degree as I approached my 30s and 40s I started to see most of the cynical ones were to a lesser degree nuts too. I came to value optimists like my wife only in my 40s when she was about 39 and I thought she was about 25 because that was what she looked like. I realized that without optimists the human race would already be extinct from war and suicide.

Life is a real paradox. If you appear to be happy all the time most people will think you are high or nuts or both. But if you are cynical all the time people will think you are a bit odd too. So, it seems only a rational even state of mind seems to work for most people most of the time. If you are too happy and smiling all the time people get very jealous and even suspicious. But if you are too melancholy then people think you might be a threat. Whereas if you live in a really dangerous area drooling while you walk home might keep a knife out of your belly or a club off your head or a bullit away from you. People who are unpredictable usually aren't messed with except by REALLY confused people who are close to drooling or drooling already themselves. This is just one of many strange facts of life about people in dangerous cities or other dangerous areas.