Is it possible to write about a happy life?

Or is it simply impossible to write when you are happy?

It has been months since I last published anything. At first I planned to only take a few weeks off — after having published a newsletter per week for almost six months straight I felt the writer’s block coming and decided to take a well deserved break. But weeks quickly turned into months, and here we are.

At first, I felt like I had nothing left to say, like I wrote about everything that was on my mind. Then I thought, maybe I just need to take a break, get new input, discover new things, offline and off Substack. Surely the ideas and words would come back, right?

Well, the ideas did come back. My notes app is full of ideas for essays, but not one has inspired me to actually write it out. The act of putting the idea in a few bullet points was enough, getting the idea out of my head was all my mind needed.

But are you happy in the block?

A while back I posted a note about my writer’s block and someone commented: “But are you happy in the block?” The reply is now gone (maybe I imagined it), but I distinctly remember reading it and thinking: “Yes, I am happy in the block.”

For once in my life, I simply went with the flow of life — real life, offline, without an algorithm telling me what to do, what to like, what to buy, or what to wear. I went about my normal life, going to work, reading good books, enjoying a movie night with my husband, and having family dinners. None of it was documented but all of it is well remembered — with a smile on my face.

But of course, every now and then, the urge to keep up with everything came back. I read the essay titles in my inbox but didn’t click on any of them. Somehow, with every month that went by, they seemed more and more out of touch — they had nothing to do with the life I live. A lively debate at the family dinner table is just that: a great evening with great people over great food. No need to find a hidden meaning about it and turn it into a 1,000-word essay about the importance of community.

The thing is, however, I used to love deepening things, thinking about a small topic a bit too much. And that is what informed most of my essays that I wrote on here. But somehow, I’ve lost interest. I’d rather cook dinner with my husband, help my soon-to-be sister-in-law with her wedding invitations, or go to the garden center to pick out spring flowers.

Unsplash, by Julian Hochgesang

Maybe I didn’t have writer’s block but instead burnout from all the think pieces about the hidden meanings of life. Trying to find a headline in everything made me enjoy almost none of it. Because most of the time a good life is simple.

When going through my Substack inbox, it seems as if there are only three types of personal essays: the ones about the hidden meanings of day-to-day life, the essays with beautiful words about the pains of life, and the funny essays.

I love when someone is capable of writing with such emotions and feelings that a piece of writing is actually able to move me, but I can only read so much before the weight of the world weighs me down. And the funny essays are exactly that: funny. Where you write about the positives of life with lots of humor and comedy to it. Several essays have made me laugh, but often they feel a little bit too funny, almost like they are making fun of a happy life.

Personal essays seem to fall into three categories: exploring pain, searching for hidden meaning, or adding so much humor that happiness becomes the punchline. But where does that leave the stories of quiet, content lives? Is it even possible to write about happiness without conflict or making fun of your own life? Would it be too boring? Maybe that’s why so few essays capture happiness as it is—because it’s too mundane. Is that why listicles exist? To simply share what we’ve been up to?

Or is it simply impossible to write when you are happy? Is that the reason I can’t seem to find an essay about a happy life that isn’t making fun of it and doesn’t try to find a hidden conflict where there often isn’t one?

I didn’t want to believe that the best writing had to come from what was darkest in us […]. […] there seemed to be something fundamentally fucked up with this notion that our sorrows were more worthy of attention than our joys; that our grief was more authentic than our happiness, that was truest in us—and about us—were our wounds.

by Maribeth Fischer

When I look through my essays, specifically the ones where the words poured out of me without much struggle, they are all about a conflict or problem, or about something sad (Losing your childhood, The death of random information). Others required a lot of research and are looking deep into a niche topic (The Diet Coke Phenomenon, Becoming a timeless fashion icon).

And when I reflect on the time when I had the inspiration to write an essay per week, my life was happy but in flux. A lot of things happened at the time that made me feel restless (house renovations not going to plan, a lot of changes at work). Writing helped, it was an outlet to create something completely on my terms, something I have complete control over. But this restless time passed and everything turned out exactly the way I hoped, and now … now I am at this weird place called happy. And somehow it is a place where words are no longer needed.

With every new essay in my inbox and feeling the pressure to write growing bigger and bigger, I’ve pondered over this. And the more I think about it (ha, deepening things again) I also wonder what actually makes a happy life? A lot of people would probably say that a happy life is a memorable one. And some make the argument that they are happy when they simply live their lives, but that living like that for a while would lead to them not remembering it at all “because every day would blend together”¹.

I understand where people are coming from with this, but I tend to disagree. A family meal can be a memorable event — the laughter, the jokes, the stories we will tell our children stem from those moments. Are they memorable? For ourselves, they are, after the fact, but in the moment they often pass us by. And I think what people mean by a memorable life is not remembering it ourselves, but others remembering our lives for us. But we are not living for other people, we only do that for us.

The type of moments that actually bring happiness — not just look it — are not ones you can whip out your phone and snap a photo of. They are the small, quiet moments that culminate into bigger ones — ones that you don’t even know are the big moments in your life until you look back and realize what actually makes your life worth living.

by Jordan Santos

If a happy life is filled with small, quiet moments, is it any wonder that writing about it feels impossible? A story must have some form of narrative arc—a beginning, middle, and end. But if a happy life is an endless stream of simple moments, then there is no beginning, middle, or end—we just exist.

I would love for someone to prove me wrong. Please, if you know of any writing, or any other kind of storytelling, that depicts a simple and happy life, without conflict and without deciphering a hidden meaning, I’d love to experience it. Because for once, art would actually imitate a boring, happy life — my life.

XOXO
Annika

1. Do You Want a Happy Life or a Memorable Life?