Welcome, class of 2021!

We're actually going to start a new blogsite this semester, at https://philoshap2.blogspot.com/ -- see you there!

jpo

Habit de-forming, for health and happiness

Harvard Center for Health and Happiness (@HarvardCenterHH) tweeted:

"All habits need to be re-examined from time to time."

This @GreaterGoodSC podcast examines the practice of temporarily abstaining from something you find enjoyable. Featuring @michaelpollan & Dr. @DunnHappyLab. https://t.co/bH0Remkn1e https://t.co/LNmO6oJ7DQ
(https://twitter.com/HarvardCenterHH/status/1418658460753858560?s=02)

Not an either/or

Those who reject false dichotomies are best. https://t.co/mmEb4cIOKR

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) July 27, 2021

Wobegon happiness

 A ball game, a book, and a brat: happiness

Posted on July 9, 2021 - Columns

Being a 78-year-old unemployed orphan does not qualify me as a tragic victim and that is just a fact, plus the fact I am married to a woman who has a big heart, loves a good time, is fond of me in particular, and she is also able to read instruction manuals, which is something you don’t notice during courtship, your mind is on other things, but now in the twilight years when one is tempted to throw the new printer over the parapet and hear it crash on the pavement below, it is good to have a rationalist in my life.

So I don’t need to discuss my fear and loathing of washers, dryers, coffee makers, and air conditioners, their mysterious manuals, because that’s her department so instead I’ll tell about Amazon and their purchase of MGM this summer, which earned a bundle for my family so that people now assume we’re going to leave Minnesota and move to an island in the Caribbean. No way.READ MORE


Happiness comes to those who don’t give a rip
Posted on July 6, 2021 - Columns

I am a happy man now that I know what the secret of happiness is, which, according to Buddha and Jesus both, is to give up wanting things. It’s just that simple. I’ve bought houses in hopes of happiness, taken vacation trips to Hawaii and Norway and Barbados, bought three-piece suits and shirts with French cuffs, and spent as much as $28 on a haircut, and felt vaguely dissatisfied after, but now I am 78, an age at which I expected to be cranky and of course there’s still time but now I discover I can’t get what I want because I’ve forgotten what it is. So there you are. Time solves another problem.

Happiness is rare for a writer, an occupation with a failure rate somewhere around 85 or 92 percent. If doctors had our failure rate, America would be a country of about 15 million, most of them not feeling well. The westward migration would’ve ended at the Mississippi. Why cross a big river when you’re already nauseated and feverish?

Luckily, we writers get to discard our mistakes, unlike doctors. In this line of work, there are no autopsies. I threw away two versions of the first paragraph, each one dumber than the other, and nobody will ever see them, just the one that begins “I am a happy man.” Two sheets of paper, crumpled, in the wastebasket, made me happy.READ MORE

Garrison Keillor

Surprised by joy

Wonking Out: mRNA and the Meaning of Life

Americans are suddenly feeling good. Why?

Happy days are here again. No, really. Gallup has been asking Americans since the beginning of 2008 whether they are "thriving." The percentage answering yes hit a low point in the depths of the 2008 financial crisis and again during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. But it has soared in recent months, to 59.2 percent, its highest level ever...

Paul Krugman, nyt 

A Young Naturalist Inspires With Joy, Not Doom

At 17, Dara McAnulty is becoming one of Britain’s most acclaimed nature writers, with work that touches on his autism as much as the world around his home.

MONEYDARRAGH, Northern Ireland — While he carefully stepped from one moss-carpeted rock to another, Dara McAnulty outlined his rules for nature watching.

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“You’ll never see something if you bring a camera,” he said on this coastal stretch of Northern Ireland, “and you’ll definitely never see what you’re intending to find.”

His rules quickly proved true. McAnulty had wanted to use the ramble near his home to show off the local curlew population, but it was high tide — with waves sending salt spray spurting over the rocks — and there were no birds to be seen.

Instead, he squatted down to stare into a rock pool in search of his latest obsession: shrimp. Seaweed swayed in the water, but there were no signs of marine life. Then, suddenly, he noticed the smallest movement. “Oh, there’s a shrimpy boy!” he shouted. “Oh my God, it’s amazing. Can you see it? Can you see it?”

(continues) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/books/dara-mcanulty-diary-of-a-young-naturalist.html?smid=em-share

Collective effervescence

There’s a Specific Kind of Joy We’ve Been Missing

We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence. It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field. And during this pandemic, it’s been largely absent from our lives.

Collective effervescence happens when joie de vivre spreads through a group...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/opinion/sunday/covid-group-emotions-happiness.html?smid=em-share

Cosmic unhappiness

 

"Our culture... values happiness inordinately"

From The New York Times: We Want to Travel and Party. Hold That Thought. How to grieve 16 months of sickness, death and isolation.

...Facing suffering head-on is not an easy task or one that’s encouraged in our culture, which values happiness inordinately. Telling or changing our story takes time, and it can be a painful process. But it’s a necessary one if we want to move past the brokenness of this difficult year toward a newfound sense of wholeness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/opinion/covid-pandemic-grief.html?smid=em-share

Dr. Happiness

Happiness "sounds flaky, kind of frivolous," Dr. Diener said. But, he explained, "well-being is much, much more than having fun." https://t.co/UiwLQ8nQY2
(https://twitter.com/NYTScience/status/1406399911676022785?s=02)

The dark side of happiness

https://youtu.be/PbtzY-8IFTQ

This could be why you're depressed or anxious | Johann Hari

Find your tribes...

https://youtu.be/MB5IX

"True happiness" according to Shakespeare and Shelby Foote

 An old post:

True happiness

Shelby Foote was right about “true happiness in this world“: it’s all about finishing each day’s work and already looking forward in eager anticipation to the next. I’d rather not be anchored to a single desk, myself. I have several, at home and at school; and I try to think of every walkable spot of ground as part of a big rolling unbounded work station. I even regard my hammocks (which are also mobile) that way, when I want to. But then I’ve not published 3 million words between covers yet, so maybe I’m not quite the authority on this topic that he is.

In any case, I really love the way Shelby perked up near the end of that 3-hour C-SPAN session with the stony-faced and humorless Mr. Lamb to offer his vibrant observation about the connection between happiness and meaningful work. He’d clearly given the matter some thought, it’s exactly what he told the Paris Review in 1999:

“People say, My God, I can’t believe that you really worked that hard for twenty years. How in God’s name did you do it? Well, obviously I did it because I enjoyed it. I don’t deserve any credit for working hard. I was doing what I wanted to do. Shakespeare said it best: “The labor we delight in physics pain.” There’s no better feeling in the world than to lay your head on the pillow at night looking forward to getting up in the morning and returning to that desk. That’s real happiness.”

Just put figurative wheels on that desk and I’ll be right there with him.

Stop while you're ahead

Happy Friday everyone! #TGIF #CalvinandHobbes https://t.co/T36w0juCtN
(https://twitter.com/Calvinn_Hobbes/status/1396088611687260161?s=02)

Sisyphus

Catching up with Sisyphus (NewYorker)

 

Shopping

"The problem isn’t buying shit, at least not exactly. It’s misidentifying, again and again, the source and character of our sadness."

I love @annehelen's writing so much.

Sign up for her newsletter:https://t.co/85izB8n6JY

— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) May 12, 2021

How Exercise May Help Us Flourish

Physical activity can promote a sense of purpose in life, creating a virtuous cycle that keeps you moving.

Our exercise habits may influence our sense of purpose in life and our sense of purpose may affect how much we exercise, according to an interesting new study of the reciprocal effects of feeling your life has meaning and being often in motion. The study, which involved more than 18,000 middle-aged and older men and women, found that those with the most stalwart sense of purpose at the start were the most likely to become active over time, and vice versa...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/12/well/move/exercise-mental-health-flourishing.html?smid=em-share

Baggini on Hume

It’s Hume’s birthday (May 7) and look what arrived just in time. pic.twitter.com/Z1H4tox3Eq

— Julian Baggini (@JulianBaggini) May 7, 2021

For Hume's Birthday: A very short film on The Imperfection of (his) Genius, ahead of my soon to be published by @PrincetonUPress book pic.twitter.com/nij6jJtoqR

— Julian Baggini (@JulianBaggini) May 7, 2021

Phil Oliver

@OSOPHER

·

May 7

Replying to

@JulianBaggini

and

@PrincetonUPress

“But he was racist,” students now insist. I agree with your response that his own work implicitly condemns racism, and would love to use your book in my courses on Enlightenment & Happiness. But does merely-implicit condemnation rise to meet the moment? 

the ideology of happiness

A very interesting interview about the ideology of happiness and living with ordinary misery...
(https://twitter.com/philosophybites/status/1390177212620550146?s=02)

“The Link Between Happiness and Creativity"

Join us on Thursday, May 6 at 7 p.m. EST and listen to @MargaretRenkl an author and contributing opinion writer for the @nytimes present "The Link Between Happiness and Creativity." https://t.co/AYZEmwHUqS
(https://twitter.com/bereacollege/status/1387089675219841024?s=02)

"Grim?"

The allegedly "grim" explanation is that Finns are reasonable enough to expect everything to be average. There's nothing grim about that.
https://t.co/ftKygwuSHU
(https://twitter.com/RobertTalisse/status/1387954867222847489?s=02)

Happy Finns again, to their consternation

Finland, for the fourth consecutive year, has been named the happiest country in the world by a UN report.

The ranking has led some Finns to ask: Really?

Here's a look at how the report is put together and why Finland keeps coming out on top.
https://t.co/woPexvugG6
(https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1384449270053543936?s=02)

Cheer up! The happiness guru on how to feel better

Meik Wiking is a world expert on what makes us feel happier. So, is there a simple fix?

Sun 18 Apr 2021 08.00 EDT

Just like that, one of the world's foremost happiness boffins beams into my living room with a megawatt grin and an infectious chuckle. Even though Meik Wiking (pronounced "Mike Viking") is moving house on the day of our interview – surely up there with the most exasperating life events – spirits are high for the bestselling author, public speaker and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen.

There are removal boxes "everywhere", he says, but in the Zoom square on my computer all I can see is a handsome Dane with surfer hair and black-rimmed specs flanked by minimalist furniture and a luminous pot plant. Denmark famously ranks among the world's happiest nations and it's tough to think of a better poster boy for the land of cheer.

The 43-year-old has been busy lately, opening a happiness-themed museum – a world first – in Copenhagen in mid-2020; advising the Nordic Council of Ministers on how social media impacts young people's wellbeing; releasing the paperback version of Happy Moments, a book about creating positive memories; and overseeing a global survey of Covid-19's impact on happiness.

The pandemic has launched an all-out attack on the emotion to which he has dedicated his career. With much of the world stripped of socialising and confined to cramped apartments, the past 12 months might well go down as the grimmest passage in living memory, with many people experiencing a spike in loneliness, anxiety and suffering...

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/18/cheer-up-the-happiness-guru-on-how-to-feel-better

The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790

Grandfather Philosophy #18

 The aforementioned Happiness philosopher (and alum)...

More happy words

37's pretty arbitrary, I'd add sleep, helping others, and commitment to John Dewey's "continuous human community in which we are a link"... plus dogs, baseball, and beer.
(https://twitter.com/OSOPHER/status/1373407524251131904?s=02)

Happiness in a few words

Happiness explained, in 37 words: Money matters but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude #InternationalDayOfHappiness
(https://twitter.com/Eric_Weiner/status/1373307910126759941?s=02)

Kurt happy

The American humanist Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: 'It's a terrible waste to be happy & not notice it'. With that in mind – it would be a terrible waste to not tweet this picture of Kurt, looking very happy next to a tiny dog, on the #InternationalDayofHappiness. https://t.co/Qa2Pxe9MFl
(https://twitter.com/Humanists_UK/status/1373174972571553794?s=02)

Sleep, gratitude and helping other people

Over 3 Million People Took This Course on Happiness. Here's What Some Learned.

It may seem simple, but it bears repeating: sleep, gratitude and helping other people.

The Yale happiness class, formally known as Psyc 157: Psychology and the Good Life, is one of the most popular classes to be offered in the university's 320-year history.

The class was only ever taught in-person once, during the spring 2018 semester, as a 1,200-person lecture course in the largest space on campus.

That March, a free 10-week version made available to the public via Coursera, titled "the Science of Well-Being," also became instantly popular, attracting hundreds of thousands of online learners. But when lockdowns began last March, two full years later, the enrollment numbers skyrocketed. To date, over 3.3 million people have signed up, according to the website.

"We octupled the number of people taking the class," said Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale and the head of the university's Silliman College, of its pandemic-era popularity...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/style/happiness-course.html?smid=em-share

"More Than Happiness"

Our obsession with happiness is making our kids miserable

It seems counterintuitive, of course, but to be happy in the long run, we should more fully embrace the times when we're not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/02/23/kids-happiness-emotions/

A Happiness of Bluebirds

Margaret Renkl finds her bird:

This year isn't living up to my hopes, so I am learning to hope in a new way.

 

I don't laugh much anymore. I am grieving a mismanaged pandemic that has taken too many of us and driven too many others to despair. I am grieving the assaults on American democracy by my fellow Americans. I am grieving the brutal news of the environment, which worsens with every new study. When a suicide bomber blew up a historic section of this town on Christmas morning, it felt entirely of a piece with a terrible, endless year. Surely, I thought, 2021 would be better.

 

But 2021 has not been better. The U.S. Capitol was invaded by U.S. citizens provoked by a U.S. president. Pandemic deaths are approaching half a million. The Doomsday Clock remains set at 100 seconds from disaster. My dog died. It all adds up to a sorrow that is both unimaginably vast and far too close to home.
I have faith in the promise of spring, but right now spring feels like just another cold concept, like the concept of herd immunity and the concept of reasonable Republicans. I know such things exist, but these days that knowledge feels more like a theory than a conviction...

 

And maybe it's enough in February, in these days that are so close to turning warm and bright and green again, when we are so close to being released from the prison of our homes, to think of happiness as neither distant nor grand. Perhaps it would help to remember that even now happiness is only what it has ever been: something that lights before us, immediate and insistent and always fleeting. Not a promise at all but a temporary gift. It lands, and lifts away, and returns again, ever flashing its wings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/opinion/2021-happiness-bluebirds.html?smid=em-share