I'm stuck in an emotional loop: I'm upset that I am getting attacked from almost all sides on this internet thing by people who have known me for a long time on it, and part of me doesn't really understand it, because all I'm trying to do is encourage, lead by example. Is there something wrong with being excited about life? Why does stating it cause people to start listing reasons you shouldn't be happy?

Luckily reality is a much better experience than the internet. In reality I have friends who act like friends, you know, they're nice, and they don't talk down on you. I've noticed, most of my friends I've got now I made in the last year or so, and they all seem to like me and appreciate who I am. (The friends in real life who didn't seem to like me, I stopped spending time with naturally just because of time constraints.)

The internet people, however, and we'll just extend this to say, instead: The people who have known me the longest seem to be the least appreciative of my latest attitudes. I think it's an issue of preconceived notions: they got used to me being a certain way, and now that I am changing and they're staying exactly the same they're offended. "How dare this guy do what I can't!"

Or I'm just self-centered and for some reason they're just so absolutely bored and have nothing better to do with their time than insult me on the internet. Which, I think, still makes me the winner.

When I talk about the things I do on my livejournal, or I twitter what I'm up to, and I use superfluous words like, "I am awesome!" and "This thing I am doing is awesome!" or "This girl I am fucking is awesome!" what I really mean is:

This shit is awesome! You should do it!

I'm not trying to convey to the world: Hey, look at me, come suck my dick. The other night someone tried to say the only reason I learned how to ride freeline skates was so that I could do something cool that other people couldn't. I said, "No, because then I wouldn't be encouraging you guys to learn how to do them too."

When I got into an argument with one of my internet friends about them, his stance was "they're stupid" and I spent all my time trying to make him understand that nothing is stupid, but he didn't get that. I tried to make him understand how I feel about them, but his only reply was that they were gay and unpopular. I tried to draw parallels, so maybe he could link an emotion he has about something with the way that I feel. Then it dawned on me: this guy has absolutely no idea how I feel. Maybe he's never actually felt this way about something.

And that makes me sad.

If there's one thing I want to do, it's figure out how to help people feel awesome. You should feel awesome all the time. Based on the outline I've been constructing in my head, there are a lot of steps to achieving a consistent feeling of awesomeness, but we'll start with something related to this:

Misery is the same for everyone. When you're sad, it's generally the same sort of sad that everyone else feels. No one feels a different kind of sad when a lover leaves them, it hurts basically the same way for everyone. You're never alone when you're sad, because everyone has been there, unless they haven't. This means that your sorrow is not unique. There is nothing about you that is genuinely sadder than another person. You're not less motivated than the next sad sack, even if he's skinny and has good skin and you're fat and covered in acne. That guy is just as fucked up as you are. I promise you.

Happiness is different for everyone. This is why misery is a great uniter, why such large groups can exist based around a central complaint, because everyone can feel the same sort of sadness, the same sort of anger, but happiness is a tricky beast to handle. You can't just get ten random people in the room and have them all agree on what makes them happy, but you can get them all bitching about their exes if you prompt them.

We did a little experiment in a psychology class I took once, where we were separated into two groups based on our shoes. One group wore flipflops and generally open shoes, and my group were wearing regular shoes or boots. We were told to list the differences as to why we thought the other group wore shoes different than ours. Once we were done, both lists started rather benignly, but then gradually grew more and more insulting. I thought this was mainly amusing because, in my group, I was the person who said, "Guys, we have to start being mean, or else this will be boring." We easily found a common ground to harmonize on: anger, sadness, and negativity. We had these things in common.

Maybe this song isn't about being unhappy. There's a reason you can put this song on when you're driving down the road and it can make you feel good. Tom Petty isn't singing about how you can't possibly understand his misery, because you can, that's why you can relate to that perspective on the song. You do know how it feels, as it were. What you don't know is how he feels happy, what drives him to keep going. Maybe it's simple, like rolling a joint with a good friend and driving somewhere with the radio loud, just enjoying the company and the wind in your hair.

If there's something to take from this, it's these things:

1.) No matter who you are and what you're going through, chances are you're an arm's length away from someone who has gone through something similar. You're never alone in the pain you feel, and this should give you strength to move away from pitying yourself and your situation. Millions of people have moved past it, you can, too, so buck up.

2.) It's going to be difficult to find people who share your happiness. It's going to be especially difficult because it seems to be hard to find out what really makes you happy, and a lot of things in your life will hold you back from it (poor relationships, filling your time with things merely meant to pass it as quickly as possible) but once you figure it out, start waving it around and see if there are other people already in your life who think that is happiness for them, too. The people who don't share your perspective on happiness, especially if they aren't appreciative and try to hold you back from it, will have to be disposed of. You can do this however you like. Have enough respect for yourself to not allow people into your life who don't respect you.

3.) Nobody really wants to hear about your happiness. Seeing it is much more effective. Unhappy people like to feel alienated, it keeps them unhappy, so the best thing you can do with them is make them feel completely welcome and comfortable by being completely at ease yourself. This will annoy the piss out of them but eventually it'll become infectious and they'll like to be around you. When it doubt, shut the fuck up about yourself. (Fat people don't like to hear about how much weight you lost recently. Poor people don't like to hear about or even see how much money you have.) It's a good rule.

Good luck! Unless something interesting happens to me today I figure my next couple songs will be coupled with entries kind of like this one. It's this one-track mind of mine.