Inktober 2026 - 15 - Hooray

I’ve been called a Debbie Downer many times in my life, for the sole reason that I struggle to celebrate things. It’s not that I don’t know how, was never shown how when I was a child, or anything like that, it’s more that I have a hard time feeling like elation is well-deserved. In my book, one shouldn’t have to force oneself to be happy about something. You either are, or you’re not.

To be fair, I am a generally happy person, and I am happy about good things happening, I just don’t jump up and down at the slightest positive outcome. Or lack of a negative outcome, for that matter.

People will be coming back from a trip abroad, and I’m not sorry for not joining them in their exacerbated relief at their transport not being late or hijacked, they luggage not getting lost – read: most likely stolen –, them not getting their throat slit or worse in some dark alley. Those are things we shouldn’t even worry about. Those are all things that shouldn’t even be happening in the first place if, as a species, we had any modicum of self-control and decency. In an ideal world, we shouldn’t even be aware of them as possibilities. So no, I’m not overjoyed at them NOT happening, when I firmly believe they never should to begin with.

Then there is the dreadfully mundane that gets, in my opinion, undue confetti. Again, I make no apologies at remaining quite unfazed at the announcement of someone’s baby, wedding, graduation, or promotion. Those are normal occurrences. Those are the basic milestones of a lifetime. I’m absolutely not saying everyone should achieve them, far from it, to each their own path, but achieving them still isn’t worthy of that much excitement as far as I’m concerned.
Animals in the wild reproduce, and if you’ve had difficulties getting there yourself, I don’t feel like you should be particularly proud of forcing nature’s hand in that department.
Weddings are nice, they do rely on the genuine miracle that is finding romantic love in this strange world, but that’s exactly why they shouldn’t be held in such high regard: for two people genuinely in love, why is promising themselves to one another a big event? Shouldn’t it actually be very easy? The only reason we make a big deal out of it is because it fails sometimes, but then, shouldn’t the failure be shamed instead of the norm put on a pedestal?
And finally, graduating or progressing in one’s profession is the natural escalation of one’s application to a task. Not evolving would be the aberration.

So yeah, I’m bad at accolades, I’m very hard to impress, and for that I get accused of jealousy a lot of the time. I don’t mind, though. Because one day, there might be something so extraordinary that it will make me sincerely cheer, and that will get people’s attention. If you are wowed by every little thing, how does any of them feel special, in the end?