🦄On being HAPI and a writer at the same time

In How to Thrive as a Writer in a Capitalist Dystopia, I asked whether it was even possible to be happy and a writer at the same time. Happiness was a bit of a hobby horse was mine at the time, in that I listened to The Happiness Lab and read the occasional book on happiness, but I wasn’t obsessed with it in the way I was with death mythology, weird art, or even how stories shape culture.

I have, historically, been miserable, and wanted to not be miserable, so I took an interest in anything that could help. That interest became fascination, which became dedicated study and then…

…well, did you know that it only takes 30 minutes a day of study to become an expert on something? I must have read close to 100 books on happiness, everything from the highly esoteric to the highly scientific, each of which led me down another rabbit hole that brought me in contact with eastern philosophy, manifestation, quantum physics, meditation, medicine, yoga, and dozens of other disciplines.

Through it al…