Is It Okay To Be Happy?

Social trends have changed a great deal since the days of my youth, and I haven't been young for quite some time now. I'm an American, born and raised. Naturally, anytime you live in a neighborhood with 300 million other people, it's a pretty good bet that not everyone will see the world in the same way. It also makes it harder to find a good parking space. Even so, the occasional asphalt shortages notwithstanding, there are cultural viewpoints that become the accepted norm. They also tend to change from decade to decade as each new generation seeks to define itself.

There are countless smaller pockets of culture that are defined by race, religion or country, just to name a few. As you might expect, these vary widely, and that's a good thing. We should be who we are, and we naturally gravitate toward the company of kindred spirits.

Be that as it may, if you want to get a general sense of where society is going at an abstract level, the world of entertainment is an excellent place to start. It's not at all uncommon for a movie release to be absolutely flamed by professional critics and snarky Internet review sites only to go on to earnings of 1.21 gazillion dollars. The latter is far more indicative of what people really like. When you're voting with your wallet, you tend to tell the truth.

Before I started paying the bills as a software developer I spent a lot of years playing in rock bands, so musical trends are something that I naturally notice. I enjoy writing as well, so books, TV and movies have also been favorite pastimes. Probably because I'm a peace, love and happiness type hippie from the 70s, I also tend to notice the vibe behind the arts more than most.

I came onto the rock scene when bands like Led Zeppelin were roaming the Earth. They were heavier than what came before, not as heavy as what came next, and that's the normal trend. However, in the 50s when rock and roll was born, it was a joyous noise with a swing beat and a happy, feel-good vibe. While the guitars got heavier with each passing decade, it was still party music for a long time.

However, as the 90s turned the corner into the 21st century, things became progressively darker. Modern rock is dominated by metal, a genre with phenomenally skilled players who are nonetheless in a race to see who can be the darkest, most evil band on the planet. Commercially, metal is hugely successful. That means this is what a lot of people want.

I'll lump books, TV and movies together because they're all based on a story. Because I'm half geek, half hippie, science fiction was something that I enjoyed growing up. Like music, it's also seen a significant change in tone over the decades. Both the original Star Trek and the Next Generation series were full of hope and optimism, as that was creator Gene Roddenberry's vision. The very first Star Wars movie was lauded for its special effects, but it was also a tale where the good guys came out on top. Additionally, those first three movies spoke of Jedi Knights who used the Force to make the world a better place. It was all very idealistic, and idealism was a popular sentiment.

Fast forward to modern times, and science fiction is now combined with horror on bookstores shelves, and is often indistinguishable. Anything even remotely resembling a positive outlook on the future has been replaced with dystopia, and that's the light hearted stuff. There's a similar race to that of metal bands, with each book, movie or TV show trying to outdo the next in terms who can have the darkest and most disturbing vibe. The public lines up in droves to spend money on this, so again it's obviously what people want.

In addition to the content itself, the advent of computers has made it easy to apply what's known as “looks” to video with relative ease. The technical term is color correction, which was once used to make every scene in a movie consistent. Today, it's a creative tool used to add a particular visual flavor to an entire show.

The trend in modern times towards a disturbing vibe can also be seen in the overall color of shows, from sci-fi to drama and even comedy. The entire screen is frequently drenched in tints of corrosion brown or diseased green. Some shows are so saturated in gray that they're almost black and white. These color schemes are useful creative tools to make the settings very dismal, and they invoke a sense of despair. It's become a popular choice and the de facto standard.

In terms of stories, there's also been a significant cultural shift. Comic books were once full of idealistic superheroes, larger than life characters who could live up to the high moral values that we mere mortals so often struggle with. Sadly, the days of heroic figures, be it drama, action adventure or a good old fashioned comic book story, are largely gone. In their place are moody and flawed figures full of self-doubt and moral ambiguity. Apparently we'd rather have protagonists of dubious morality that we can relate to than inspirational heroes who make us believe in something better.

Across popular culture the trend is towards darkness and despair, and it's been that way for some time now. I could say that it's all terrible, but the fact of the matter is that it's not. With music, books, TV and movies we're absolutely saturated with content to consume these days, and the degree of talent and skill that goes into these works is truly impressive. There are a lot of really talented people out there putting out high quality art.

But that's not the point. People vote with their dollars, and all of the things I just described have been massively profitable for those who create them. This isn't a case of bad art being forced on an unwilling public. People actually want depressing or horrifying themes in their lives. In fact, they're willing to pay good money for it.

I spend a lot of time in reflection and self-examination, and my goal is to be as honest with myself as possible, whether I like what I see or not. It sounds more fun than it is. Nonetheless, as I look at the social trends in culture today I have to wonder, have I turned into that old guy who hates change, longs for the good old days when things were better, and thinks the younger generation is destroying society? I remember those guys when I was a kid. They were annoying. Is that really what I've become?

As a software developer, I've spent the last three decades keeping up with the latest in tech. There's a computer in just about every room of my house, and if you turn off the lights my recording studio looks less like 1975 than it does the bridge of the starship Enterprise. I love science, tech and the new abilities they've given me over the years. It's constantly changing, and I'm usually excited about what's new.

They say if you can remember the 70s you weren't really there, but from what I recall my life is infinitely better now than it was back then. To my eyes, these are the good old days, right here and now. As for the young, at the most fundamental level I just don't see a lot of differences between my friends back then and the younger generations of today. Different tech, different toys, same people. Some brilliant, some not so much, just like it's always been.

And yet, having survived four decades as an alleged grown up, I'm able to look in the rearview mirror and easily see the changes that have taken place over the years in terms of what's popular, what's not, and what it says about our mindset. There is no evil conspiracy to force darkness on an unsuspecting society. People actively seek out hopelessness, despair and a dismal vision of the future, and they do it in large numbers. They even pay good money for it. So if I'm honest with myself, maybe the problem really is me.

I've been using various forms of entertainment as an easy way to recognize the shift in our cultural mood, but this isn't about art. As they say, art imitates life which imitates art, and the dog chases his tail. What I find unsettling is not the art itself, but the overall trend of people actively embracing darkness as either desirable, inevitable, or both. And that's where you lose me. I just don't see how that makes anyone's life better.

I've always felt that you get the future you believe in. That's not true in a literal sense, of course, but I've found it an effective starting point. If my goal is to be happy, and perhaps contribute to the happiness of others, then I have to assume that a brighter future is possible. If not, then why bother trying at all?

If I sit in a corner and continually repeat to myself that everything sucks and the future will be terrible, how does that help me? If I want something better for myself and the people I care about, I have to believe that I can get it. If I don't, I'll give up. If I give up, nothing gets better. Darkness and despair tell me it's all hopeless, and that I should give up. I know what happens if I quit trying to make things better, so I choose to do otherwise.

For this reason, I like larger than life characters who always save the day, idealistic stories with happy endings and music that makes me feel joyous. I like surrounding myself with optimistic people who inspire me. I'd rather keep the company of uplifting friends whose character always feels beyond my grasp than hang with depressed and morally flawed pessimists who make me feel better about my own shortcomings but encourage me to accept futility and despair.

Life is often a struggle from day to day. You can be as optimistic as you like and still have everything go wrong. Trust me, I have plenty of battle scars. That's why we need hope and people to encourage us when it all goes sideways. Optimism is the rocket fuel of the soul, and I need all the fuel I can get.

The human experience offers no guarantees, but you're unlikely to find utopia unless you want it and actually believe that it's possible. It's both my conviction and my personal experience that life only gets better if I do something to make it that way, so I choose to believe in a brighter future. Most of all, I just want to be happy. Apparently that puts me out of step with the rest of society.

So here I sit, a fish out of water without the decency to even put on a swimsuit. I want to laugh, to play, to enjoy life and dream of a better tomorrow. And yet, everything around me says I'm delusional and out of touch with the times. All the cool kids believe in darkness, not idealism. Even so, I think I'd rather be crazy than cool. The crazy people have more fun.

Is it okay to want happiness? Is there a value to art that inspires us, even if it's not realistic? Am I right to embrace optimism, to believe in a brighter future and be willing to work for it? Or am I just barking at the moon?