The Law of Happiness

Direct application to the freedom movement

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth installment of a twelve part series on the training of the Octagon Society, Order of Spiritual Alchemy. Previously we have discussed the three preliminary laws, to get at and excise the detritus of trauma etc in preparation for the preliminary laws, and the first of the eight primary laws, The Law of Acceptance, to get about the work of intentionally building the life you want, of strengthening the self and opening up and expanding consciousness. Links to the previous installments can be found at the end.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Declaration of Independence

When I was an Admin at the website Doomstead Diner, after the collapse of the global credit market in 2008, I began to notice a phenomenon that made me question my participation there. RE (Reverse Engineer) was the founder of the Doomstead Diner, he was all about “fast collapse” aka apocalypse, so that was the thrust of the website, go build your doomstead, this website is like a doomstead diner in the wilderness where doomsteaders go to socialize about living with doom.

The more I thought about it, the less I was about fast collapse apocalypse. I was more in line with John Michael Greer’s catabolic collapse, something like a step down decline taking decades and even centuries. The whole doomstead concept seemed absurd to me, one man hoarding food, gas, guns and gold in an apocalypse is going to have his goods and his life taken from him in short order after such a collapse, by an organized, armed group led by the local warlord. You can’t really hide in such a scenario.

But what really dissuaded me from the fast collapse, apocalypse scenario was RE himself. He was something like fallen aristocracy, he had gone to Colombia Univ, he was an elite gymnast and later a teacher of elite gymnasts. By the time I met him online though, his health had collapsed, he could barely walk, he was mostly a stuck-in, living in Alaska barely even able to get out and shoot his .50cal. He went and bought a doomstead RV, tried to live out of it but it wasn’t practical.

By the time I met him IRL, at a Doomstead Diner confab outside Austin, Texas (before Austin got totally bougie), he had come to resemble physically something not at all unlike a troll under a bridge. He smoked incessantly, he could hardly walk, he tried to control every conversation until I finally took him aside and told him to let other people take part in the discussion.

I intuited, if I took over the Doomstead Diner, as I could have after RE went into assisted living and could no longer manage it, I might have ended up like RE, obsessing as he did about fast collapse and mad max scenarios. But by that time I was so distanced from DD and RE, that wasn’t going to happen. Whatever became of RE, he had a good heart, and he was always a strong supporter of my writing, much of which from those year is lost. I’ve been trying for years to contact some of the regulars of the Diner, but they were mostly older and after 2017 all seem to have been cast to the winds of doom…

WTF IS HAPPENING TO MY LIFE?

I know at least one of my subscribers is fond of Frances. I subscribed on that recommendation, but I have a hard time reading Frances, bless her heart. She is relentless in pursuit of her “Black Nobility”, such that I always come away from a piece feeling queasy. I was not at all surprised to read this from her. Both Frances and her son seem trapped in a dark place. I do wish them happiness.

What does any of this have to do with the Law of Happiness? In the same way obsessing about evil in the world can affect our mental, spiritual and physical health negatively, focusing on the beauty, wonder, magic, mystery and stunning beauty of this earth and this universe can facilitate good health and even happiness, even in the midst of so much darkness, madness and evil.

This has been an issue for the medical freedom/general freedom dissident community. The information Age exacerbates this. Humans were not made to take on the ills of the entire world. Contemplating so much darkness is hard on well being. It seems hard to be happy in the midst of metastasizing authoritarianism and degeneracy, ever present for us to doom scroll through. Everything about the world seems increasingly unstable, the forces of authoritarian control seem to be in the ascendant. What is there to be happy about?

The Law of Happiness is stated simply: Happiness is a decision we face in every moment of our lives. Happiness or sadness or whatever is not due to something that happens to us, it is about how we react to what happens to us, how we think about it. Obviously, there are things that happen to us we feel very sad or angry about. The initial reaction to such a cause is genuine, it is important to feel that, to work through it. The question is, do we linger in sadness, do we linger in anger, has either or both become the default feeling? Do we have fleeting moments of happiness, but always fall back into sadness or anger? Because happiness can be the default. Happiness can be what I return to, after feeling sad, after feeling angry. Happiness can be the Way, in fact it is essential to true spiritual growth, and that is very much a choice.

Happiness is sometimes mistaken for contentment, as if it is without agency, some end goal that once achieved there is nothing else, or that it is like a goal that can never be truly achieved. There is something about this mixed materialist/Protestant Christian age, that happiness is somehow not desirable, not to be sought, the only thing is to work hard, achieve, be active all the time, happiness is for retirement or something, or for after you are dead.

But happiness is more like a state of self-awareness, being at ease with oneself, accepting oneself, as we discussed in the last installment, the Law of Acceptance. In fact it is hard to act well out of sadness or anger, happiness is more a state for getting things done.

One thing that is important to do to facilitate happiness, is to regularly do things you love to do. I was feeling angry recently, as I couldn’t get my chainsaw started. I cleaned it, I changed out the gas, it is a newer chainsaw of the best brand, why is it not starting dammit? It was a beautiful day. I went to the garden and prepped garden beds for next spring, while I listened to my Sing playlist and sang along, as I listened also to the birds. I got a lot done, then I went home and got my chainsaw started. It only took like 300 pulls, but it is working well now.

That might not seem like much fun to you, but on a pleasant, partially sunny, unseasonably warm, later November day, that is happiness for me. That is not the only thing that facilitates happiness for me. Writing substack posts does that for me too, among other things.

In the way of Spiritual Alchemy, the task is to look to the past at things that are sources of unhappiness or anger, and work through it accepting it and the people, so that it no longer has such a hold that we continue to feel sad or angry about it. Sometimes there is something from the past that is no longer even conscious most of the time, but still contributes to a general sadness or unaccountable anger. As with most of the laws, that starts with Dad.

• List the things your father did to you that made you feel sad and unhappy

• List the things your mother did to you that made you feel sad and unhappy

• List the things your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins did to you that made you feel sad and unhappy

• List the things your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors did to you that made you feel sad or unhappy

• List the things your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees did to you that made you feel sad or unhappy

• List the things your enemies and antagonists did to you to make you feel sad and unhappy

• List the things all other persons whatsoever did to you that made you feel sad or unhappy

• List the things you do that makes you feel sad or unhappy

1. Step One is to list the things your father did to you that made you feel sad or unhappy. Make this list as complete as possible. This is the first task and it can be completed in the same manner as you approached the First Law, the Law of Acceptance.

The second task is to consciously decide how you’ll handle these same situations in the future regardless of the people, places and things concerned. Your decision is not specific to your father but general to all other situations similar to the events you’ve listed in regard to your father. Think through how you will remain happy in many situations that previously caused you sadness and unhappiness. You may find it useful to imagine yourself in each situation, and then imagine yourself doing the things that will make you happy instead of unhappy.

Once you’ve completed both tasks to your satisfaction, move on to the second step.

The more happy you are generally, the more enthusiastic you are, the more productive you will be, the more people will be attracted to you, the more things will come into your life that make you happy.

We aren’t going to do anything about the state of America and the world out of sadness or anger, but more likely out of some indefatigable happiness, as strange as that might sound. That would be something like knowing who we are, what we are doing, that we are generating fundamental change (in ourselves first,) and that destiny and truth are on our side. What I talked about in my last post, Do-Over Revolution, should be something like a joyous affair, something like fate, knowing that is who we are and this is what needs to be done. But always and again, we aren’t going to be able to change America until we first are able to generate the kind of change we want for ourselves. I encourage you to make happiness your default state of being.

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That said, I have a great deal of gratitude for my readers, my last post was restacked seven times - you know who you are and I thank you! - which is probably a record. I passed the 600 subscriber mark with that post, after a period of subscriber decline, which seems monumental to this small fish. Thank you thank you thank you! That post, unlike my typical 400ish readers per post, is currently at about 1000. I picked up at least 20 new subscribers! Welcome! So there is clearly a desire for revolution, at least to talk about it. So I will be making that a regular part of this substack. Thank you for reading.

Introduction

Preliminary Lessons:

The Law of Blame

The Law of Shame

The Law of Guilt

Primary Laws:

0/8 The Law of Acceptance

1/8 The Law of Happiness