I Thought She Would Make Me Happy

A deeper look into delusional thinking

Before I dive in, I just want to say that the paid and free subscriber benefits have been expanded, more info on that down below.

Also, for various projects I’m dreaming up this year, I’m looking for an animator, a graphic designer and an illustrator to work with, if you have any of these skills, please submit your work here.

Finally, I wrote this listening to this.

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Last summer, I travelled to Berlin to visit a girl. She was German/Argentinian (I know what you’re thinking – even my parents looked at me with raised eyebrows when they discovered this), a photographer, and I just could not get enough of her freckles.

Super cute! Creative! Spoke beautiful Spanish! What was there not to like?

Of course, there were red flags. She had mentioned partying and tripping on acid, like, a lot. While I do have a profound appreciation for psychedelics, I like to spend the vast majority of my life sober. My life mission is to become increasingly more present, to not tune out, even when I’m tempted to.

Still, I had to give this a shot. The pull was a little too strong.

So, in late July, I found myself somewhere in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, drinking an awful lot more than I usually do just to keep up with her.

I’m really not a big drinker at all, but as I glanced down at the glass of orange wine, I figured it was part of the adventure, right? I found her terribly attractive and I’ve yearned for a partner that’s creative for a long time…

This trip to the German capital ended up being a disaster. The latest in a long string of examples illustrating Nathan’s Incredible Ability to Be Delusional. The tipping point, the feather that broke the camels back, was when she invited me on a boat to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

Freckles described the plan with an excited smile, over the loud boom-boom-boom of a corporate rooftop party that was rapidly sapping me of my energy or desire to spend time with other human beings.

The invitation was for the following day: we were to get on a boat for 8-10 hours, trapped with 30+ people. Nonstop dance music, alcohol, speed, cocaine, MDMA and pretty much anything else that could be brought on this boat. Remember, this is Berlin we’re talking about here. I should have seen this coming.

I was seated with some of the people that were going on the boat – every single one of them hated their soul-crushing corporate jobs. They even said so to my face, in between loud laughter, intoxicated embraces and water gun sprays. It was the image of happiness except I wasn’t fooled for a second.

Everyone was numbing themselves to oblivion.

The idea of spending the whole following day like this was as close to a description of my own personal hell as I could imagine. In fact, she had done a better job than I think I would have if someone asked me to come up with the worst possible way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon/evening in summer. Of course, she couldn’t comprehend my reaction when I told her I wasn’t planning on joining. This was, in her eyes, about the best way you could spend a Saturday.

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Let’s step back for a second. I didn’t go to Berlin to be miserable, I went to Berlin because I was excited about a girl. We all get excited about things. I gave it a shot because I thought maybe I’d be happy spending more time with her. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gone. But you know, I get carried away when I’m excited about something, I didn’t see or rather didn’t want to see the reality until it got so bad I had a massive pit in my stomach.

I’m actually always trying to make life decisions that lead to a happier life. At least in theory, if we make enough of these decisions correctly, we’d all gradually become happier and happier until we’re all maximally happy. Except that’s not what’s going on. Not even close. So why is the pursuit of happiness so muddy?

Well, here’s a mental model that’s helping me make sense of things:

Instead of thinking about yourself as one single person, imagine for a second that there are actually two of you. Two entirely separate people. To keep things clear and easy to understand, I’ll give each of them a name: Delusional You and Real You.

Both Delusional You & Real You appreciate nice things. Some examples of nice things: a trip to the Alps, quality clothes, owning a cottage on the top of a hill, sex, writing a bestselling book, having a lot of money, and chocolate.

Everybody has a different idea about nice things. For some, a party boat is a nice thing. For others, it’s a whole morning to read quietly. Or it’s owning a private island. It doesn’t matter what the “nice thing” is specifically, what matters is that we all desire for nice things.

The defining difference between Delusional You and Real You, however, comes down to belief systems.

Delusional You operates with the following belief systems:

1. Nice things make me feel good.

2. Feeling good = happiness, because happiness is a good feeling.

From there, it’s almost a logical equation:

3. I need to pursue/have nice things to be happy.

4. If I increase how many nice things I have, I’ll be happier.

Over time, this can develop into:

5. If I lose my nice things, or don’t get more nice things, I will not/cannot be happy.

With this belief system, it makes sense to strategize forever to have more nice things. Your Delusional You is sneaky about this, doesn’t say it overtly, this can just kind of happen in the background. He’s constantly telling you to focus on the next fun, exciting or shiny thing. To get that piece of clothing or furniture or gear or a new machine that massages your feet that he just saw on Amazon. It could be a relationship with someone that looks like an excellent match on paper. It could be a relationship with a person that lasts one evening.

The Real You, the other half of You, can see clearly that this is insanity. Once you have the basics, like good food, a proper place to sleep, good health and a few good people in your life, the chasing of more things, making more money, having more stuff, it’s all a game that never ends. Everyone knows that you get decreasing benefits by having more things, that rich people seem to be just as capable of being miserable/dysfunctional. Nice things are nice to have or to taste or to experience, I certainly really enjoyed kissing Freckles, but these nice things never contribute to a lasting or deeper sense of joy.

In fact, often in the pursuit of nice things, you find yourself putting up with stuff you really don’t like (see: Nathan wondering why he’s at a corporate rooftop party in Deutschland).

Real You happens to know that the truest and greatest form of bliss/joy/happiness exists irrespective of your material circumstances, it exists within you, and only through surrendering to life, a faith in whatever you want to call the glue that seems to be connecting all of us together.

But of course Delusional Me thought I’d find happiness in international pleasure chasing and for some reason that’s an easier narrative to latch onto.

What’s maybe a little bit hard for all of us to wrap our brains around is the fact that you are BOTH of these people. There is the clear-eyed, grounded, wiser version of you and the version of you that buys into the above belief systems about nice things = happiness.

I’m fascinated by my own, often confusing behavior as a human being, as I boomerang between these two versions of myself, on a daily or even hourly basis. It’s like I forget what the wiser me knows to be true as I’m drawn to shiny things.

I don’t want to claim to know how to be happy, I clearly get carried away in my delusions.

But I do feel pretty confident about where unhappiness comes from: the wrong belief systems. Thinking that specific things or circumstances can make us lastingly happy.

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Let me clarify something. There’s real value in living with discipline and balance, eating well, sleeping well, doing the kinds of things that keep you hormonally regulated. Community, meaningful work, autonomy. Those are all nice things too.

But in a way, these too can play into the same sort of trap – a forever chasing of the perfect balance, the perfect body, the perfect routine, the best work, the best food, the best mattress to get your best sleep on. The best spa to do the biggest detox, the biggest reset, and by the way all of this costs a lot of money so good luck not getting attached to having money and everything you can buy with it.

I am still a creature of desire. I’m not above wanting this stuff. My eye for beauty makes me weak in the knees for beautiful things. I’ve come to believe that this is not a problem you can think your way out of, it’s the Great Human Struggle. It’s the long-ass journey all of us are on to waking up and seeing clearly.

The reality is that I’m 27 years old and have a massive appetite for adventures and for connections and yes, for nice things. Part of me just wants to eat all of it up out of a genuine curiosity to experience life fully, and part of me mistakenly thinks that if I have/do it all, I’ll be happier than I am now.

Each time I go through an experience like the one in Berlin, I’m demystifying another delusion on what it means to live a joyful life. I’m pretty sure there is nothing anyone could have told me to dissuade me from going to Germany. I had to experience it for myself. And that’s how it goes for all of us.

Even though I understand and fully agree with some of the Eastern teachings that state that suffering is born out of attachment and desire, that we’ll never be fully free until we drop those things, I’m just not there yet to let it all go.

Delusional me hasn’t completely let go of the idea that THINGS REALLY DON’T MAKE YOU MORE HAPPY or else I wouldn’t be thinking about how to invest my money, how to make my home a beautiful and comfortable and creative place. Or finding the right partner! The physical pleasures of sex or the sense of safety you feel from another person’s embrace are all things we can grow to become quite attached to…

You see, the list of “things that we accidentally think will make us happy” is infinite.

The part where so many people get confused (including me) is that there is actually nothing wrong with comfort or pleasure. What’s dangerous is the idea that those things can ever be more than they are: temporary things that feel nice.

I think a lot about Jim Carrey’s quote, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.”

I don’t shy away from the fact that I’m chasing things. In fact, if you follow my work, you’ve seen me actively pursue, play out and demystify my delusions in real time. I just think it’s the only way to realize they don’t bring what you really long for.

We’re all doing this, all the time.

So if ever I seem like a contradictory person, with conflicting interests, it’s because I am. Delusional Me is a loud motherfucker, he has a lot of ideas and I often fall for them.

Being delusional is not anything to be embarrassed about, it’s part of the human condition. Whether you’re chasing that dream partner, that dream job, that dream body, that dream home, that dream car, that dream lifestyle, it’s all the same thing. Go for it, I say, and just pay close attention every step of the way. Watch yourself eat that chocolate, watch it dissolve in your mouth and watch yourself forget all about it an hour later.

Which version of You are you choosing to listen to?

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Thank you for reading. I’m working really hard to make writing a much bigger part of my life this year. Upgrading to the paid tier goes a looong way to helping me write and send out more of these essays.

Paid subscribers will now receive weekly voice notes that are totally unedited, exactly like a iMessage or WhatsApp audio message I would send to a friend or family. I’ll answer questions, share reflections and in general I hope to make this feel like a little creative boost for anyone working on their own projects. Here’s the most recent one if you want to get a sense of what it’s like.

Meanwhile, everyone (free and paid subscribers) now has access to the chat feature on Substack, and it has been incredibly cool to see everyone posting and connecting on there. I think it will become a great place for people in this community to connect.

Warmly,

Nathaniel