Barry Ahern's Blog - Posts Tagged "dystopia"

In response to a very enjoyable re-occurring theme, I’m going to offer a little background to some of the worlds in the Birthright series. As Dangermaze is the most recently published, the world that sticks out the most to me is the World of Pain. It is part of a tri-world system including the World of Happiness and the World of Anger. The dynamic between these worlds is simple, you reside in the world of the emotion that dominates you. As abstract and as crazy as this sounds, it’s not that much different than real life. Physically we live in the same world, but within our minds we all live in our own worlds. The World of Pain is a dreary place of constant production. People working away diligently to distract themselves from that unresolved pain lurking at the front of their minds. Sadly sometimes people never recover from this state of suspended anguish, and select to live a life of pregnant distress. In fact after swapping messages with Mo Gawdat, author of the book “Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy” he made the distinction between pain and suffering. Pain being an event the world gives you that may not match your hopes, while suffering the selection to dwell on that event, constantly regenerating it in your head to regenerate the pain. This is the World of Pain, a place where we end up imprisoning ourselves. The World of Anger on the other hand is a lawless unadulterated landscape of aggression and sharp words. We’ve all been there (road rage!!), and sometimes with good cause, but living in this place is a different story. And lastly, the World of Happiness, a place contrary to how it sounds is not a place of people with happy stories. It is a place of people who try to choose to be positive. Don’t get me wrong, this is exceptionally difficult, especially if like most people you have your own demons. However, it is a case of either trying to make the best of things, or it’s a matter of flipping back and forth between your other options. The hope is that everyone has at least 1 thing that keeps them connected to the World of Happiness.