Overwhelming Joy

Scott Adams, the genius behind Dilbert, has spent the last 18 months in a speechless hell, suffering from Spasmodic Dysphonia, a rare disorder that nobody has ever recovered from. None.

Before this week.

He has his speech back. Go read about it at his blog. It's a happy, happy story. And he has asked commenters to describe the happiest moments in their lives.

I spend a lot of time in the moment, which is a pretty good place to be, arguing politics, dealing with hassles, working to make stuff better, hanging with friends, and all the other stuff, mundane and spectacular, that goes on in a Gonemild day.

And most of the time I fall out of the moment, it's because of something unpleasant. Death. Disease. Ugliness. But it's fun to get slapped out of the moment by a big burst of happiness.

And it's probably harder to write honestly about happiness than it is to write about sadness. And for a guy who's been married for 24 years and has two stellar kids, it's risky not to describe a wedding day or a day of birth.

So I'll avoid setting a superlative in cement, and hit a couple highlights.

The day I flew to LA for some legal work - I was probably 32, quite cocky in my abilities, and totally on my game. I landed at the Ontario airport, and the rental agency upgraded me to a huge silver Cadillac, which I drove through LA for much of the day, before blasting down the highway to Palm Springs for depositions. Speeding through the desert in a big Cadillac, with a Neil Young tape (yes, this was before a rental car would have a CD player . . .) blasting so loud that the rear view mirror was vibrating . . . it was a blissful moment.

The day I won an election to head up a leadership organization - probably the same year as my trip to Palm Springs. I got into my car and it was the first day of that spring when the car was noticeably warm because of the sun, and you could drive with the windows down. I cranked the radio, and heard "Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane for the first time, and all was good.

Christmas morning a couple years ago, and I opened a box that promised a trip to Cochabamba, Bolivia. It was such a weird and infeasible idea, that it meant much more than a trip. It meant change and growth and oddness can still be a part of my life, and there are fewer limits on my life than I imagine.