Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Thoughts on Frowning

People say it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.

There's a moral to this, I guess, or at least there's supposed to be. The idea is that if people think it's easier to smile, they'll smile. Perhaps they'll even think that the human face was designed to smile, and that someone out there wants us to smile so he made it easy.

The primary issue here is that sometimes in order to feel better you need to frown.

Sometimes smiling is the problem and people need to frown but it's hard, it's harder than smiling because it requires less muscles and people like to do the easy thing so they smile and smile and smile until that's it, they're lost behind a smile because their moms were right: they had a face for too long and it froze like that. So they are forever smiling and laughing even when they don't want to be, when they want to frown a little bit they don't because they're lazy and frowning takes too much force that they don't have.

I wish it was the other way around. I wish smiling was harder. I wish smiling was like running in the rain because you have to work for it but it's the most rewarding thing you'll ever do. Every time your running shoes slap the wet pavement you get a little bit wetter and a little bit more exhausted but a little bit better, you get a little bit closer to the end when you'll be wet and exhausted but finished and smiling, smiling even though it requires so many muscles because it would require some other effort to frown and that's the kind of effort you don't have. You have the effort to stretch your face and smile. Smiling should be fantastic. Smiling should be unique because right now it's too easy to smile. People smile at everyone and it's all fake. If something's difficult, you know it's not fake. If everyone could give everyone a bicycle when they met them they would but they don't because it isn't easy to have a bicycle for everyone you meet so instead of bicycles we get smiles. I want smiles to be this impossibly difficult expression of everything. I want someone to smile at me and I want to feel so good about it that I want to smile back. I want to know they like me. I don't want something fake. I want to know that someone wanted to give me a bicycle but then they realized that would be too easy.

I would smile at you if things were like that. I promise.

6 comments:

Frances said...

aww, that's really cute in a thoughtful way. i've never really thought about it like that before...
do smilie-emotions count? the : and ) keys are closer than the : key is the the ( key.
i'm kidding.
anyways, the picture is beautiful.

Ali said...

I disagree with your use of commas to seperate independent clauses or lack thereof.

Anonymous said...

wow. I love it.. <3

I'll never forget the time you told me to put a pencil in my mouth to make me smile so that my brain would think I was happy.

Anonymous said...

But it takes even less muscles to just sit there with a dumb, apathetic look on your face. :P

Anonymous said...

That was marvelous. :)
}:(
:)

Abby said...

Jeezum, Sam. That right there was a good post.

I like the bicycle analogy: something awkward and hard to manage in large numbers. Good mental image. I dunno if I agree about the smile thing itself, though. If smiles are easy to make, people don't seem any more encouraged to use them than to stare coldly into space. I think the barriers of insecurity and awkwardness are enough to boost the value of a smile without having to deal with physical strain, too. A quick smile from a passing stranger means a lot. It signifies the breaking of social habit and of indifference, saying "Hey, cool, something that isn't another piece of wall. I hope things are going well for them." That's rare and that's valuable.