Nietzsche once gave us his formula for happiness: A Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal. It's simple: but also a little surprising and disappointing.
For whilst we might share his need for something to love and affirm and share too his delight in having something (or someone) to oppose and negate, there's something functional and all too German about this metaphysical ideal of the straight line and the positing of a fixed goal at the end of such. It has the unfortunate effect of transforming a formula for happiness into a sort of business plan, or recipe for success.
Such linear thinking is certainly at odds with the picaro's idea of wandering aimlessly but joyfully in a kind of schizonomadic manner; or the flâneur's love of strolling through city streets and arcades; or the pervert's desire for deviation, aberration, and waywardness.
None of these happy souls stick to the straight and narrow; none of them have aims, objectives, or plans of accomplishing anything. Neither, in truth, do they affirm or deny anything. At a push, they might want what Earl Butz believed to be the three things that the coloureds looked for in life - tight pussy, loose shoes, and a warm place to shit - and even then they might sneer at the bourgeois notion of comfort implied by the last of these things.
Still, as competing formulas for happiness go, this latter, for all its sexism, racism, and vulgarity, just might have the beating of Maxim 44.
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