Have some fun already
On small joys, "Always Be Closing", and what the professional scolding class gets wrong
A recurring theme within Internet discourse is "People getting angry over the minor jokes and small joys of others". The alert viewer can find examples all the time. The anger quite often (perhaps preponderantly) comes from individuals who identify quite vocally to the left of center and who are quick to take an almost Puritanical offense at even small deviations from their sense of orthodoxy.
■ Cooper Lund highlights an example of this condition from someone denigrating another person's rather anodyne observation that it's perfectly fine to go out and enjoy living, shopping, and dining among other people within a community. Lund notes: "There's a lot of people on the left who have substituted their version of communism for puritanical religion and then wonder why more people don't agree with them."
■ The famous line from "Glengarry Glen Ross", "ABC [...] Always Be Closing", gets morphed by some into "ABS: Always Be Scolding". And it's not a good look. The semi-professional scolds need to be reminded periodically that it's quite OK to take "the pursuit of happiness" at face value.
■ It is perfectly sensible to acknowledge that the world is a mix of both good and bad experiences, and that there are many mild and gentle joys worth celebrating (sometimes even in public), even in times that contain big challenges. Happiness itself is a good thing -- so good, it merited an express acknowledgment in the Declaration of Independence. Individually, we should seek happiness, and we should be pleased to see others seeking it for themselves.
