January 30, 2014

Reflecting on the 100 happy days project

Oh no, the 100 "happy" days are not over yet, not even half way through for me to introspect about them. Just a few passing thoughts as I am dutifully putting up a picture each day. When I first spotted the 100 happy days project on instagram, I was really kicked about the prospect of all those lovely pictures that would go up each day as "this is what made me happy today!" and going over them at the end of the 100 days and feeling all joyous about all the little things that put a smile on my face that day.

As I started taking the pictures each day, I realized that it is not like everyday you go for an outing that makes you spill over with joy, so trip pictures got restricted to weekends. You cannot keep putting up pictures of jogging track where you go for your morning walk and get the adrenalin rush or the happiness at finding an empty bench in the park after the evening stroll. So you are left with the mundane food and material acquisitions. Well, eating the chocolate cake is fun, but not so much putting up a picture of it while I am waiting for it to cool down.

So this puts me into a moral dilemma. I end up putting pictures of "things" that are photograph-able for the project. But what about the moment when I threaten that Arnab Goswami shouting on TV will end up causing our divorce and the husband promptly hands me the remote and then wistfully looks at it, hoping I would change my mind? At this point, I smile more than what I did when I ate the chocolate cake and change back to the shouting match cause I can't see the fellow's depressed expression. Or the moment that the sister laughs at me complaining about the weather in Bombay and tells me that it is God's way of punishing me for all the days when I turned off the fan saying I can't stand the cold. And the next moment she tells me that sitting in the biting cold in Delhi, she does miss having me around. And my heart just melts.  A whatsapp conversation with a friend can make me all chirpy the whole day, but how do I capture such moments of joy?

Most things that make me happy are abstract- a spoken word, a warm hug or actions from people I meet or interact with. Until there is a way to put these up on instagram, I will stick to the more material things that are secondary sources of happiness. I am just praying and working towards ensuring that at the end of 100 days, it does not look like a collection of "what I cooked" or "what I ate" today :D

P.S. Oh, and by the way, you can find my collection on instagram hash tagged as #100hdquirkygrl 

6 comments:

  1. This was the first thing that came to my mind when I read about the project!
    How do you record the feelings, the conversations and the company of nice people which make you happy more often than
    "stuff"? But it's nice to record whatever is record-able :) and it's nice to have regular instagram feeds - I look forward to your pictures :)

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  2. Thanks Divya :) Trying my best to update everyday. :)

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  3. This sounds cool. I'm gonna give it a try! :)

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  4. I have been missing your updates for the last few days. Now, I know why. I felt exactly this way immediately after signing up - what a hollow thing(completely materialistic) and yes I know what you mean - most of the pics are about food and drink. Darn!!! But it is a nice way of knowing what's cooking in your friends' kitchens - get ideas and inspiration. And not to mention - try to take better photographs.

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  5. :) I am consciously avoiding putting up food pictures. They are for the blog! That's why no update for a couple of days. And I understand your feeling about the materialistic angle to happiness in the project. Will be a challenge to put up something that depicts what "actually" made me happy that day.

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