Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine

by Derren Brown

We might sometimes pay patient heed to our sorrow, allow it to penetrate into us, knowing that it is an important articulation of what was already there. It is showing us that something demands our attention. We do not need to fear the world, or treat it with suspicion. Any monsters that dwell there are our own. The final call, then, is not to merely seek tranquillity but, from its strong shores, to welcome its opposite. It is a strong society that encourages dialogue with its enemies, and a fearful one that promulgates reductive nouns and categories (such as ‘Terror’) to demonise and avoid the unsettling complexities of active, untidy reality. We, too, must seek the same conversation within ourselves. And do so before the forces we repress rage against us.