happiness lives in the smallest spaces.
we spend our lives chasing it through promotions and relationships and status markers. always somewhere ahead, never here, never now.
it doesn't scale. doesn't compound with interest. doesn't care about your square footage or your follower count. the modern promise that more equals better? happiness thinks that's hilarious.
the brain adapts to everything. new job? new spouse? lottery win? six months later, same baseline. hedonic adaptation. nature's cosmic joke. the universe laughing at our endless wanting.
it exists in the gap between getting and wanting. that fleeting moment before desire resets. before the brain recalibrates. before enough becomes not enough.
i think it mostly hides in attention. noticing the first sip of coffee hitting your tongue. the weight of a book in your hands. the pause between notes.
coffee tastes better after sleepless nights. warmth feels sweeter after bitter cold. we need emptiness to recognize fullness.
and then there's flow - losing track of time, forgetting yourself exists, merging with the moment so completely that the boundary between you and everything else dissolves. meaning does something similar. so does connection - being truly seen by someone, that electric moment when guards drop. these aren't separate paths. they're the same path noticed from different angles.
it's not found in intensity but in attention. not in more but in enough.
it's not the destination. it's not even the journey. it's the attention we bring to both. that's basically it.
it finds you when you stop moving long enough to be found.
not complicated. just elusive. hiding in plain sight. right where you already are.