Happy Hours are Sometimes Hard to Find

Americans are fascinated with trouble. We desire conflict, love despair and are obsessed with tragedy. If you disagree, pop on the TV as I did to try to prove myself wrong. Airline crash, flood, child molestation. Turn the channel. Women who used to be me n who are now unhappy with their sex change. Turn the channel. Riots in Bosnia, gunfire in Israel, hunger in India. Turn the channel. Relationship crisis with Jennifer who used to be David's father's girlfriend before she became possessed by the devil. J ust turn it off.

As if you could just turn it off. Walk out onto the mall and sit for awhile for the live version of the Daily Dilemma. As you read, some freshman is quietly relating the latest tragedy involving her abusive, alcoholic boyfriend as her friend tries to inte rject the building crisis of her mom not wanting to pay for spring break in Mazatlan. Forget solutions, we don't want them. We only want perpetuation to our difficulties. After all, a problem that's not persistent or traumatic just isn't that interesting over dinner.

Give us troubled relationships, desperate finances, dubious friends, and devoted enemies. Give us alcohol and drugs to abuse, classes to toil in, and teachers who just plain hate us. Core curriculum, student housing, curfews, parking, hand guns, and red s quirrels: We love 'em all.

Contentment and happiness is just not very entertaining in this country. Do we even dare consider for a moment why this mass culture attitude is perpetuated? Certainly it's a profitable situation for corporate moguls. How would our economy survive if one day we suddenly decided that the car we drive was just fine, or our clothes were forever in style? How would we worry about what to wear? What would we do to impress that hopeful future lover? Would the whole world slide into a soup of drab mediocrity wh ere relationships went on without fights and employment existed without intra-political bitching?

It would be the end of daytime soap operas, talk shows, and the most of the daily news. The whole thing sounds to boring to bear.

It's a good thing I feel that way, because between wondering what to wear for the four thousand four hundred and ninety-sixth time, and ignoring the radio's pleas to end the suffering in Africa, I received notice from the university that my class schedule is wrecked beyond hope of repair. I suppose I'll fret about it until it ultimately resolves itself unsatisfactorily, complain to my friends about it, then wait patiently for the next problem. Besides, if we didn't have meaningless problems to discuss and commiserate around, what would we do during Happy Hour?

Jason Pyle is an engineering physics senior. His column, 'Critical Point,' appears every other Monday.