I would not be disinclined to chat, if you should be so inclined.

But it's a hell of a way to draw people in.

Hiya

Tee hee!

So what are you dear little fishies up to?

Trying to figure out the best time and place to have a very awkward, painful conversation that has become inevitable.

And reading comics.

@Corey: I'm cooking too! Catfish stew with jalapeno buttermilk corn cakes.

@oi!oi!oi!: this is pretty standard as awkward, painful conversations go. The ole "we both know we need to break up, and neither one wants to pull the trigger" talk.

I sure as hell don't. Even when I'm not the bad guy....I'm the bad guy.

Um... can I come eat your food instead?

O:Funny, I always thought it was love and hope duking it out for that crown. Drama is just what happens when you don't get enough of them. Which kind of describes my relationship history in toto.

H: Unproblematic happiness is unworthy of mankind.

Corey: I cannot handle a head in my lap. My lap is very sensitive and I get all squirmy.

O: we're certainly capable of dealing with problematic happiness. But problems exist because we're not at the ideal unproblematically happy state we strive towards. Since unproblematic happiness is the ultimate goal, can it really be said to be unworthy?

O: lots of folks, and the way I defined it, it kinda has to be. Counter-definition?

H: Without problems, we are not men but either beasts or gods. Unproblematic happiness is a thing. Mirage. Not a goal.

H: Worth for me is a thing determined by propriety, not any hierarchy of values.

H: Unproblematic happiness is for beasts and gods; not for us. A man needs unprobematic happiness like a fish needs a bicycle. Problems give us drama - the grammar 'pon which one lives a life, learns, struggles and grows.

O: that seems like a very symbolic way of dealing with something I just realized isn't a large disagreement at all. I don't think we ever get to unproblematic happiness. Nirvana and utopia aren't on earth. But in keeping U.H. as the goal, we still get all the learning experiences we need to be human. If problematic happiness is the goal, we get that every day of our lives. So there would be nothing to work towards, and none of the conflict you (rightly) think we need to grow as people. But if we work on inching closer to the ideal (or, indeed, identifying what that ideal is to each of us), then we grow from boyz II men.

:D

CMI: I've always felt sorry for hoosiers. Indiana seems to be an entire state of schlemiels.

H: I just read your thing! (It is hard to keep track on a mobile.) Problematic happiness is a goal, you see; most people are excessively unhappy. Making *un*problematic happiness a goal is, I think, a common error. It too often leads us to abandon, out of distaste, the things that are difficult and so avoid the drama. That whole "ideal" state dooms us to making pain and drama the enemy. To make an enemy of conflict is vanity itself; for conflict, whether right or wrong, is inevitable.

Mao-y Wowie, my spates of sophistry's biggest fan: Happiness is for inquiring young noblemen and their wretched heirs.

Their wretched heirs have been left with much less.