A Christmas Recipe for a Happiness Cake

The Christmas Happiness Cake

This is not your standard, edible cake served in many of the Commonwealth nations and other places around the planet during Christmas time. This is a very unusual type of cake. This out of the ordinary cake it is for those hungry souls that starve happiness. This cake is to feed the free spirit, your energetically charged chi, this rare Christmas Happiness Cake will nourish the very essence of your flustered existence.

When you eat a slice (of any size) of the Christmas Happiness Cake, an internal and subliminal metamorphosis commences to develop inside you. A subconscious process is detonated sparked by the potent conglomeration of the elements of the cake. It is an intoxicating sensation, a frantic evolution of your soul; it is a massive and final migration of the last dreadful filaments that incarcerate your spirit. All things suddenly change colors, distances become thoughts, dreams evolve leisurely into bona fide and tangible goals, and people begin to look different.

There is no pain or sadness, no suffering or shame, no desperation or panic, no feverish breathing or lurid nightmares. There is just the peace of the spirit, there is the scudding taming of the soul, there is a consolidation of the quintessential courage of your imagination, and there is an impulsive glint of raw happiness.

What is happiness?
Technically speaking, happiness is an unmetered mental and physiological state expressed as a gregarious emotion. This emotion is tangled and associated with multiple feelings which encompass an assortment of levels going from the simple pleasure and fulfilling satisfaction, to ecstasy, passionate joy, and even frenzy –perhaps orgasmic- conviviality. In other words, happiness is the total lack of despondency, and blah, blah, blah. However, Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, or even Fyodor Dostoevsky could not define happiness better than me or you could. So, there.

Personally speaking, I believe that happiness is made of a lot of ingredients that vary eminently in size, quantity, quality, and nature. Sometimes I am happy eating a piece of soft candy, sometimes I am very happy listening to my youngest son (who is still a promissory project of a man) trying to explain to me how his X-Box works. Sometimes I am happy just by looking at my family, and sometimes I experience happiness just by being in peaceful solitude.

Of course sometimes I need a more complex combination of factors to enjoy a different level (not better or greater) of happiness. Last Thanksgiving for example, my family and I traveled for almost five hours to pay a visit to my in-laws at their home, and to get together with the rest of the family and celebrate the holiday collectively. Almost everyone was there at the big, comfortable, and cozy loving home of my wife’s Mom and Dad. My wife has five brothers, all married with kids, dogs, birds, and a few crazy cats. We were all there, the whole family together. We are “Sempre Famiglia”, Italian for Always Family, as my father-in-law always repeats every time he has the opportunity to do it.

After enjoying the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving celebration, a large, generous meal which my mother-in-law makes darn sure that beats the rest of the neighborhood tables and her own from last year. She always overwhelmingly succeeds in bringing about the demise of everybody’s diet, which are mercilessly crushed every single Thanksgiving by the untamed power of her titanic cuisine. After we all enjoyed as one this gluttonesque supper, I sat in the family room to drink my coffee. I needed to give a break to my saliva glands that were forcefully impelled into overtime and over production. I just sat there quietly and observed my unmitigated family. There is no such thing as “extended” family for us. We all are one-solid, one-cohesive, one-frontier family; we are indeed Sempre Famiglia.

While casually sipping my coffee and blissfully accommodated in a comfy couch, I observed everyone in the big, big family room. The many precious children were running without stinting around everywhere, screaming, laughing, and giggling. The small dogs were fighting for their “new”, however temporary territory while the cats run fully terrorized to hide under the first place they could find. The adults were talking to each other, laughing, hugging, taking pictures of everyone, helping with the dirty dishes, picking up the children’s clothing and their orphan shoes spread everywhere. Some were sleeping with their heads hanging back and contributing musically to the party with their not-so tuned snores. Perhaps this is the only time and place where they can take a blunt, un-inhibited “siesta” without worries or having to maintain a man-like posture. My wife was animatedly talking to her brothers about family matters and other tutti-frutti stuff; some guys were watching a football game on the big screen TV, drinking holy beer, and yelling in some Sanskrit lingo while performing those ritualistic and primordial dances of football every time their team scored.

The ladies could not stop cleaning and picking up things around the house while exchanging important information about the latest clothing styles, food, children’s schools, and other strictly womanly themes. That morning I decided not shave and no one said a thing about it. The only complaints I received were from the evasive children I manage to kiss. There was also my father-in-law, carrying under his left arm long forgotten pictures and aged clips from ancient newspapers giving testimony of the family’s splendid erstwhile days, and relating amazing chronicles of past grandeur to whomever wanted to listen to him. In sum, we were being Sempre Famiglia, like we always are. And slowly, undisturbed, I was gradually but securely slipping into Morpheus receiving and irresistible arms with a stomach full of godly food, and a soul saturated of this “mental and physiological state expressed as a gregarious emotion”, which I still call simply, happiness. My semi-consciousness was briefly interrupted by a furtive hand rescuing the coffee mug from a short, but fatal freefall journey to the genuine Carrara marble floor, but I never knew whose hand that was. Then, I was irremediably lost in the whirlpool of ecstasy created by the black hole of the forty winks. I like to do this. This is happiness for me. I wish I could do this more often. Yep!

I have also experienced happiness in more complex and dangerous ways! My wife calls it immaturity, my brother calls it craziness, my friends call it insanity, my neighbors call it foolishness, and most people would call it madness, but my Mom calls it been myself, and my kids love it terminally! My undomesticated nature finds irresistible to jump from a plane and find out who is the last insane one to open the parachute, before a close and personal summit with the ground below! I know, it is crazy, but I can not shake the last vestiges of my eternal youth and its diehard entrenched hormones, and at last, you live only once. So, there.

Whatever you do and however you do it, happiness is the magic elixir that will extend emotionally and physically the wellbeing of your life. Be happy and make every effort to stay happy. Being almost happy does not count. I never knew a woman that is “almost pregnant”. You are, or you are not! In mathematics, the dull term almost it is used to denote all the elements of something, except for finitely many. In another and more understandable vocabulary, the word almost means crap. No crap at all, that is.

Our beloved Mother Theresa was happy helping others, and so it was our dearest Father Damien. The hustle and bustle of “people helping people” it is always a rich, rewarding, and never-ending source of happiness. Some people are happy just to be alive one more day, and nothing compares to the happiness of the family of a soldier returning home.

You need to look and search around you. Look into your family, your friends, your community. Happiness is everywhere; you just need to learn to distinguish it amidst the emotional bedlam. So you know; we all have a last resource reserve of happiness that lies deep into yourself, at the junction of the armpit of your heart, behind the tail of your soul, and just underneath the guts feeling of the julepe. If you can not find happiness anywhere else, then you can draw colossal quantities from there!

So, whatever happiness is for you, it is for you only. Your happiness will never be like mine, or mine like yours. Happiness it is very personal and its engendered ingredients will be as different as they can be on their size, quantity, quality, and nature. Your personal and precise recipe for happiness will only be determined by your inner-child. Really! Happiness is like a spiritual blob you can shape in any way or form you want.

The German philosopher of Prussian origin Immanuel Kant once wrote: "It's one thing to be happy; it's another thing to be good." The underlining message of his phrase is that “happiness” is discernment, an insight, in fact an emotional state. He does not measure happiness against quality, or a defined list of ever-updated ingredients, or a shining path to its core. Immanuel Kant does not even attempt to define what it means, because as I said before, happiness is an amorphous spiritual blob (a cake recipe for that matter!) that will take unyielding shape in your spirit and nowhere else. In the Hindu Vedantic philosophy, happiness gives life to your cosmic consciousness; is a fundamental conception, a life-giving source of energy for the living creatures.

There are and have been thousands of philosophers, naturists, psychologists, psychiatrists, rationalists, realists, skepticists, idealists, pragmatists, existentialists, phenomenologists, structuralists, analysts, consequentialists, moralists, anthologists, geniuses, idiots, ethicists, cosmologists, epistemologists, metaphysicists, logicians, anthropologist, dumbasses, scientists, and a whole bunch of other wizards and wise guys who tried to define happiness, and they are still trying. What a crock! If they could not even define the size of King Kong’s diaper, how can they define a personal and indivisible concept of the spirit with a universal one-size-fits-all theory? You just can not. Happiness is only and no more than what you make of this wonderful spiritual blob!

If you know what intrinsic and druidistic formula makes you happy, and it is honest, untainted, and fulfilling, Carpe Diem! Forget the rest and go for it! If you really want to learn about the basic and primal mechanics of happiness, watch carefully the Master of Masters, the un-obfuscated: SpongeBob SquarePants.

You see… a cake is a mix of a bunch of ingredients rooted in serendipity, different ones, in distinct amounts, and they are not always the same combination. There are tortillions of recipes, and in spite of their differences, there is always one recipe that makes someone happy. It is that special recipe, that one that it is so unique, so dissimilar, so out of the ordinary, which posses that “Je ne sais quoi!” -a French expression for I do not know what!- that only your soul and spirit will recognize. Like the cakes, your happiness is an exceptionally inimitable and indiscernible recipe that is fitted only to you.

Your real happiness is evident only to you. You might think that someone is not, or it looks that is not happy, but appearances are often deceiving. There is an old Spaniard fable that illustrates the case.

As the fable goes, in a small township in the far-flung environs of Fuentespina, Spain, there was a group of people that liked to amuse themselves by making fun of the dumb guy of the town, a poor soul that made a living by running small errands for people, and receiving alms, to whom the village people called “the idiot”.

Everyday, the men called the idiot up to the bar where they routinely got together to drink, and asked the idiot to choose between two coins they presented to him. One coin was of a bigger size and it worth 400 reales, and a smaller coin was worth 2,000 reales.

The idiot, after thinking carefully and talking some time to do so, always chose the bigger coin of smaller value, immediately unleashing wild loud laughs, and sarcastic remarks from everyone. And this practice had been occurring in a daily basis for years.

One day, another man that was at the bar observing the group having fun at the expenses of the innocent idiot, called him aside and asked him if he has not realized yet that the coin of smaller size was more valuable than the bigger coin, and the idiot responded: “Yes sir, I sure know. I am not that stupid. The bigger coin is worth five times less than the smaller one, but the day I chose the smaller coin, this dumb game will end and I will not make anymore the easy money I have been making at the expense of this squad of morons”.

This tale could end here as a simple joke, however, there is more behind this unpretentious anecdote. First, who seems to be an idiot, not always is. Second, sometimes the real idiots are on the other side of the table. Third, blind ambition can cut short your source of wealth.

The important thing here is that in spite of a bad opinion others can have of you, you can still be fine, therefore, what others think of you it is not important at all, the important thing is what you think of yourself. The genuine intelligent man is the one that pretend to be an idiot in front of an idiot that pretends to be intelligent.

In the story, both, the idiot and the other men were “being happy” at the expenses of each other, and their motives were diametrically opposed.

Happiness is the fine and skilful art of turning around inauspicious circumstances into a resounding success. It is engraved in the spirit of the rousing poem “Don’t Quit!” written by an unknown genius of poetry. For example, people with really bad credit do not have to worry about identity theft so much. With such bad credit, no one will be able to use your identity for a good deal, so there is no point in stealing it. So, bad credit is not so bad after all. But there are other situations where you can practice this art, and here is another witty anecdote to illustrate a situation like that.

Once, a young man was in need of a donkey for his father’s farm, so it took to the country side in search for someone to buy a donkey from. He did not walk long when he found an old farmer who agreed to sell him an old donkey. They agreed that the donkey will be sold for $100 dollars. Donkeys worth more, but this one was too old, and kinda crooked. The young man gave the farmer the $100 dollars and the farmer promised to have the donkey ready in three days.

Three days later, the young man returned to the farm to pick up his newly acquired donkey, but when he arrived to the farm, the farmer had bad news for him. “The donkey died yesterday”, he said to the young man with a sad tone. The young man replied “Oh my! Well, then I guess I will get my money back”. The old farmer responded, “I can not give you your money back. I already spent it”. The young man was not happy, but he was very optimistic and wanted to turn this bad hand into something more positive, so he told the farmer, “OK, I will take the dead donkey then”. “Are you crazy”, yelled the old farmer, “What are you going to do with a dead donkey?”, “I am going to raffle it”, replied the young man.

The old farmer was out of himself. He could not believe that this crazy young man could possibly raffle a dead donkey. He though the young man was out of his mind and the sudden death of the donkey had affected him terribly, and now he was totally insane. The young man loaded the dead donkey into the truck he had brought for that effect, and left the farm leaving the old farmer perplex, and scratching the very few white hairs left on his head, which were heavily flanked by the stubborn, desiccated zits in his wrinkled head.

A month went by and the old farmer had to go to the city to run a few errands, and he met by chance the young man. He could not hide his curiosity, so the old farmer asked the young man immediately, “What ever happened with the dead donkey?” The young man looked at the farmer with a sardonic grim and he said, “I did raffle it. I sold 500 tickets for $2 dollars apiece. I made a profit of $998 dollars”. The old man was absolutely confused. He asked the young man, “But, nobody complained about the dead donkey?”. “Only the winner of the raffle”, the young man responded, “but I returned him his $2 dollars”. And the story ends here.

Perhaps it sounds pretty stupid to you, but the point is that happiness is the relentless pursue of the positive, even into the symbiosis of the real and unreal. Perhaps sounds way too imaginative to you, but remember my young Jedi that all serious and valuable accomplishments ever achieved by mankind, started with a rowdy imagination in pursue of the impossible dream and this seemingly unattainable dream turned into reality. The imagination of the Wright brothers told them that man can fly. The rest of the world thought that they were outlandishly crazy. The Wright brothers created an impossible dream with their feral imagination, and turned this dream into a concrete reality. The world now worshiped them as geniuses. Today, rooted in that impossible dream born out of implausible imagination, we are navigating the unbounded spaces of the sidereal universe, and plotting courageous courses to infinity and beyond. Ask Buzz Lightyear if you do not believe me. Now, you plunk the perspective on this, my young Jedi.

Ok. You have bravely endured my punishing homily on happiness, so you deserve to have the recipe for the Christmas’ Happiness Cake now and without delay. I invented this recipe when I stumble upon an old formula, a magic prescription, an intangible concoction for happiness in one of the many wrinkles of the flight of my uncontrollable imagination. I am giving this gift to you today because when I cooked this cake for the first time, I found true happiness while I was trying to put it together. I hope you give it a try. You may find what I found.

The Cake Recipe at Last!

Happiness recipe ingredients:

1 teaspoon of sincerity
½ gallon of love
1 dash of friendship
1 ½ cups of faith
10 pounds of hope
1 shot glass of affection
5 drops of good will
1 pint of humility
1 bundle of charity
2 chunks of compassion
Gratings of smile
Rinds of patience
Some kisses

Preparation:
At the same time, sift the love and the hope together; slowly adjoin the good will stirring with fidelity and affection.

Dust-in humility and patience smoothly, casually splash in the dash of friendship, and blend the mix with simple bursts of charity.

Beat the sincerity and faith separately, and then, add the smile gratings to them, incorporating the whole mixture to the rest. When the mixture is completed, cover it with the kisses.

Put the mixture in a mold of beauty and spring. Introduce the mold to the heart that it is already warmed up to Sempre Famiglia temperature, and let it cook during a brief and happy thought. Then, remove from the heart furnace the cake conspiracy mix with intrepidity and decision, and let it cool down unguarded within the reach of whoever wants to try it.

Caution:
The cake is not appropriate for egoistic people, and it is highly dangerous for poor devils and enemies of your soul. The ingestion of this cake can cause radical changes on them! This administration will not be held responsible for its wonderful celestial effects.

Recommendation:
Preferably, eat a big piece during childhood. Eat the rest of the cake in small chunks little by little during the rest of your life.

Guarantee:
The cake effects are unconditionally guaranteed to last one, or two eternities.

The Other Way
You may as well make mud pies like you did when you were a toddler; remember? By making mud cakes you will obtain the same effects as the Happiness Cake, as long as you are thinking carefully as you prepare your mud cake about each ingredient mentioned in the list above. You can add some ingredients of your own, or take away some, just do not put parsley or broccoli on it, please.

Post Scriptum: I still eating small chunks of my Happiness Cake from childhood, and still works!