The Ugly Something

Creating Our Own Happiness by Wayne Coyne

“I believe we have the power to create our own happiness. I believe the real magic in the world is done by humans. I believe normal life is extraordinary.

I was sitting in my car at a stoplight intersection listening to the radio. I was, I guess, lost in the moment, thinking how happy I was to be inside my nice warm car. It was cold and windy outside, and I thought, “Life is good.”

Now, this was a long light. As I waited, I noticed two people huddled together at the bus stop. To my eyes, they looked uncomfortable; they looked cold and they looked poor. Their coats looked like they came from a thrift store. They weren’t wearing stuff from The Gap. I knew it because I’d been there.

The couple seemed to be doing their best to keep warm. They were huddled together, and I thought to myself, “Oh, those poor people in that punishing wind.”

But then I saw their faces. Yes, they were huddling, but they were also laughing. They looked to be sharing a good joke, and suddenly, instead of pitying them, I envied them. I thought, “Huh, what’s so funny?” They didn’t notice the wind. They weren’t worried about their clothes. They weren’t looking at my car thinking, “I wish I had that.”

You know when a single moment feels like an hour? Well, in that moment, I realized I had assumed this couple needed my pity, but they didn’t. I assumed things were all bad for them, but they weren’t. And I understood we all have the power to make moments of happiness happen.

Now, maybe that’s easy for me to say. I feel lucky to have fans around the world, a house with a roof and a wife who puts up with me. But I felt this way even when I was working at Long John Silver’s. I worked there for 11 years as a fry cook. When you work at a place that long, you see teenagers coming in on their first dates; then they’re married; then they’re bringing in their kids. You witness whole sections of people’s lives.

In the beginning, it seemed like a dead end job. But at least I had a job. And frankly, it was easy. After two weeks, I knew all I needed to know, and it freed my mind. The job allowed me to dream about what my life could become.

The first year I worked there, we got robbed. I lay on the floor. I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think I stood a chance. But everything turned out all right. A lot of people look at life as a series of miserable tasks, but after that, I didn’t.

I believe this is something all of us can do: Try to be happy within the context of the life we are actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe.” 

-Wayne Coyne

Takers and Leavers

One hundred years from now when our grandkids have all had sex

will they look back to the past and know what they’ve missed?

Will they think we had it better than the way they have it then?

Will they gaze at a strip mall where a field had once been?

Will they think they’re born late like the way we now do it?

Or will they curse at the present and lend credence to it?

Will they hear all the old songs and think they’re all true and hate all their own songs and everything new?

Well I’m here to tell you something that’s known,

from someone who’s lived it from someone who’s grown,

the somebody who somebody once loaned a home to.

The grass is always greener, the past is always cleaner, the present is crap and everyone’s meaner.

They say we’re moving towards something but I think we’re moving from something.

There are some folks who are more apathetic and then there are some folks who are more money grubbin’.

Well, I know there’s always been greed and green acres, and war and peace makers.

And then there’s your takers and your leavers, your havers and your needers.

And in this great froth as we skim through the batter, there’s now many more of the former and less of the latter.

Help us climb out of this pitfall disaster led by dynasties, charlatans, but not poetasters.

Where there is a mortal disconnect spawned by gluttonous connection, where you pick your own culture without viewer discretion.

Where there is no more history and nothing is learned.

Where you shun all your kin and all your bridges are burned.

Where you are what you buy and you’re who what you own; and you think of yourself and you live all alone.

You make yourself feel fine when everything’s wrong.

The world keeps turning but you’re brittle as bone.

So to all you future dreamers and lovers and leavers,

to all those who know there’s still something between us that binds us and reminds us of times that passed,

I appreciate you listening to this one man’s last gasp.

In spite of all the words that we can’t fit to song,

I’d thank you to take off your eye shades, please… sing along.

-S. McMicken