There are very few things in life that are more depressing (to me personally, I mean) than being in the company of a relentlessly joyous and alpha-minded person who is completely and totally in love with life or movies or what-have-you…who is so happy and buoyant that he/she can’t stop glowing and smiling and tingling. No offense but I would much rather spend time with sardonic, gravel-voiced, half-cranky types like Paul Morrissey or Paul Schrader.
Posted on 11.14.12: “It was sometime in the early ’80s when I began using ‘happiness pills’ as a term of disdain and derision. It came from a phoner I did with screenwriter Ed Naha, who later went on to co-write Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (’89). Ed was nice and obviously bright, but a little too euphoric and positive-minded. Alpha, alpha, gimme-a-break alpha. Like he was scared of even glancing at the sardonic or cynical or battle-weary side.
“It got to the point in our conversation that I started to mutter to myself, ‘Is there anything in the world that you’re not fucking delighted by or blissed out about, you relentlessly Pollyannic fuck?’
“I complained about him later with a friend, saying that he must have been swallowing great handfuls of happiness pills. Ever since then I’ve used this term whenever I meet someone who overdoes the cheerful. Because it feels like a kind of cover-up. It feels strenuous. Like Sally Hawkins‘ Poppy character in Mike Leigh‘s Happy Go Lucky (’08).
“And yet oddly, I haven’t been feeling this way since I stopped drinking. But I still can’t abide the kind of happiness that seems to come from a place of fear and/or avoidance.”