Happy Place

Let’s talk about the human mind and banks, the common theme being the act of depositing and withdrawing at a later point.
You put your money in the bank and when you go to withdraw it stays the same-you get the same currency you deposited. Once upon a time you could earn some interest, but then again interest rate is a function of various economic factors, inflationary/deflationary trends which makes it discretionary (for banking institutions) and not entitlement (for the depositor)..

The human mind on the other hand is a strange beast, it records every single moment then taints it with our personal biases, interpretations, emotions and isolates the ‘happy’ and the ‘sad’ moments. Think of these two moments as separate currencies which the mind deposits into two different accounts assigning different interest rates. The catch is that at any point you can withdraw from only one account. The interest rate calculation is a complex zero sum game, if one account appreciates the other depreciates accordingly. Further the frequency with which you withdraw from an account determines the interest rate assigned to that account, the more you use the account the higher the interest rate. Humans are slaves of habits, they quickly turn into people who trade primarily in either one of the two currencies, thus for some people the past is always rosy (happy memories) and for others when they look back, all they gather are thorns..

The rosy folks shouldn’t do the victory dance just yet; the curse of the rosy eyed is that they often fall in the trap of comparing the past with the present. They fail to appreciate the beauty of the present because the past always looks more alluring to them. People, places, occasions, festivities, friendships from the past always trump the present in some way.

Yet there is a treasure of happy memories which fills the heart with profound joy and cannot be tainted by petty comparisons. You think of these people, places at your darkest hour and they have the power to pull you out of the abyss. Sure, there is a pang, a whiff, a feeling of loss if you know that you cannot run and claim that sanctuary ‘today’ but somehow just the thought that they ‘were’ there for you fills your heart with a warmth of optimism-this too shall pass..

I could also add that there are some happy food memories that can just as well 'fill' a hungry stomach. I have evoked many a happy food memories to lull myself to sleep when I crave a quick bite at odd hours at night.

Here I wanted to paint a visual picture of one such happy place for me. I visited my paternal native place in the hills when I was a toddler and after a really long time I made this trek again this year. Between now and then, I just had some old pictures of a feverish child clinging to her parents and grand dad in front of the stony facade of the old house and making offerings to the modest hill gods living benevolently under the shade of tall trees.

Honestly I didn’t have any first hand memories of the place but somehow I had extrapolated some visual aids using my imagination to create a memory of a happy place where the hills were dotted with tall walnut trees which looked admiringly at the lofty Himalayas. In the morning the Himalaya’s glistened with the golden rays of sun and then hid blushingly in the morning mists. The step farms, sometimes lush green, other time sprawled with dried pine needles and then again covered in a blanket of pure white snow always looked inviting. 

All hills are beautiful but some are more beautiful than the others.
All hills fill me with awe and peace, but some just stand apart.
This was the picture of my perfect happy place-one which I had mostly conjured in my own head

As we drove along the route to my 'Pahad', I tried to imagine the times when my ancestors made the biannual pilgrimage- once leaving the hills with all belongings and cattle during the winter months to the warmer plains and then again during the summer months back to the hills. Strangely it was only when the concrete road was finally laid connecting the plains to the hills that the pilgrimage came to an end and we decided to make the plains our new home, telling ourselves that we could make the trek back to the hills ‘anytime’ we wanted..
This is the most telling tale of our time, as improvement in infrastructure shortens the physical distances between the world and our homes, we become more outward seeking. We assure ourselves that we can always walk the distance back home when the time comes- when I have earned enough, when I have explored enough, when I have quenched my thirst…

'Home' then becomes the place where I aspire to be when I am at peace with myself and have conquered all the trappings of my mind.

Perhaps there is a certain hypocrisy in my choice to live in Hong Kong, one of the most developed places in the world and be nostalgic about my little home in the hills, but I would like to offer a different point of view.

'Home' is not just a place and point in time that we must cling onto, it is our drive to seek and re-create spaces that share the same core essence but build with new experiences. The impetus to add new milestones to the trove of older grey ones.
Every week when I force my husband to trudge along the hiking trails here in HK, I am seeking my inner happy place. When the Mister surprises you by pointing out the dried pine needles on the ground before you notice (he was the only one walking gingerly down the hilly slopes covered with the dewy pine needles back home because 'his shoes were slippery'), you reconnect with your happy place.
The happy places inside us are the ones we seek, we revisit, we share and keep them alive even when we move afar..