Happy people find awe

"In teaching happiness for more than twenty years, I have seen how much health and well-being we gain by being amazed at things outside ourselves. By finding awe. From our first breath to our last, awe moves us to deepen our relations with the wonders of life and to marvel at the vast mysteries that are part of our fleeting time here, guided by this most human of emotions."

"Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life" by Dacher Keltner: https://a.co/1MT0VcR

The kindness-happiness loop

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrqgM3MOsBJ/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Effervescent moments

Meliorists believe there are ripe moments in time when our efforts become transformative. Conclusions are not foregone. Outcomes are not preset. Odell, Klein, and Solnit are meliorists.

"In the conclusion of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein writes honestly about her own fear regarding the future and motions toward kairos as it relates to action. She recognizes "upwellings" and "effervescent moment[ s]" in which "societies become consumed with the demand for transformational change." These moments often come as a surprise, even to longtime organizers—the surprise that "we are so much more than we have been told we are—that we long for more and in that longing have more company than we ever imagined." She adds that "no one knows when the next such effervescent moment will open."

I reread these words in 2020, in the weeks following George Floyd's murder, which were full of such upwellings. For me, this time was an unforgettable illustration of the relationship among kairos, action, and surprise. Time took on new topographies, and the author Herman Gray contrasted "the slow time of COVID and the hot time of the streets." In a July 2021 podcast, Birdsong suggested that the pandemic had invited some amount of culture shift simply by exposing how connected people were to those they'd never thought about, like farmworkers and nurses. It changed how the world and the people in it looked, and it was in this opening that Floyd's death and the uprisings occurred. She suggested that here, in this specific moment, "there was a greater sense of connection… from people who hadn't previously felt any connection to black people being murdered." It was a reminder of what Rebecca Solnit repeats several times in A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster: "Beliefs matter."

In the midst of calls to "get back to normal," this book was written in kairos for kairos—for a vanishing window in which the time is ripe. In any moment, we can choose whom and what we perceive as existing in time, just as we can choose to believe that time is the site of unpredictability and potential rather than inevitability and helplessness. In that sense, changing how we think about time is more than a means for confronting personal despair in a catastrophic meantime. It can also be a call to action in a world whose current state can't be taken for granted any more than its actors can remain unnamed, exploited, or abandoned. I believe that a real meditation on the nature of time, unbound from its everyday capitalist incarnation, shows that neither our lives nor the life of the planet is a foregone conclusion. In that sense, the idea that we could "save" time—by recovering its fundamentally irreducible and inventive nature—could also mean that time saves us."

— Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell
https://a.co/bdz1gFN

Nothing to be embarrassed about, Aldous

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrTq1-fNbFc/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

"Hygge"

 One of the chatbot's suggestions. It's good.

Hygge has been described as everything from "cosines of the soul" to "the pursuit of everyday pleasures". The Little Book of Hygge is the book we all need right now, and is guaranteed to bring warmth and comfort to you and your loved ones this winter.

Hooga? Hhyooguh? Heurgh? It is not really important how you choose to pronounce 'hygge'. What is important is that you feel it. Whether you're cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends, hygge is about creating an atmosphere where you can let your guard down. g'r

 

Ingersoll's creed

MY CREED IS THIS: HAPPINESS IS THE ONLY GOOD.
THE PLACE TO BE HAPPY IS HERE. THE TIME TO BE HAPPY
IS NOW. THE WAY TO BE HAPPY IS TO HELP MAKE OTHERS SO." 

 

The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

More from the chatbot

If you like "The Good Life"…
https://share.askaichat.app/F26FE455-0BE4-4369-BA8D-6CF69753F11D-2OUzXDA5

The chatbot's reading suggestions

I’m teaching a course called Philosophy of Happiness next Fall. Please suggest a reading list for the course, beginning with the best books on the subject published in the past two years. [The bot didn't follow instructions, none of these is new. I've used 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9 before. I'll look into 7 and 10.]

🤖🤖🤖

AI: Here are some suggestions for a reading list for your Philosophy of Happiness course, including some of the best books on the subject published in the past two years:

1. "The Art of Happiness" by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler (1998)

2. "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom" by Jonathan Haidt (2006)

3. "Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction" by Brad Inwood (2018)

4. "The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World" by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (2016)

5. "The Power of Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale (1952)

6. "Happiness: A Very Short Introduction" by Daniel M. Haybron (2013)

7. "The Pursuit of Happiness: A Philosophical and Psychological Investigation" by Staffordshire University (2020)

8. "How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad): A Creative Workbook" by Lee Crutchley (2015)

9. "The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want" by Sonja Lyubomirsky (2007)

10. "The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living" by Meik Wiking (2016)

These books explore various aspects of happiness, including the relationship between happiness and ancient wisdom, the role of positive thinking, the science of happiness, and the importance of cultural and social factors in happiness. I hope this helps you in creating your reading list!

More enthusiasm, less withdrawal

Arthur Brooks-

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrdUCCyrFj4/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Chatbot’s Happiness reading list

https://share.askaichat.app/F26FE455-0BE4-4369-BA8D-6CF69753F11D-2OUzXDA5

The Philosophic Buddha

"I'll admit it: I am not a fan of Buddhism. I know this doesn't sound good—like confessing to contempt for puppies or to harbouring doubts about human kindness. But it's best to be plain-spoken. Reader, consider yourself warned..." Kieran Setiya

Against “the tyranny of the ameliorative”

Ameliorate… AND be happy too. In praise of "the little human things":

"…[Adorno] was right to resist what we might call "the tyranny of the ameliorative": the feeling that, in times of crisis, all that is worth doing is to fight injustice, so as to make things less bad than they are. How can we listen to music, or work on the more speculative questions of philosophy and science, while the planet burns? But while political action is urgent, it's not the only thing that matters.

In fact, it couldn't be. If the best we could do was to minimize injustice and human suffering, so that life was not positively bad, there would be no point in living life at all. If human life is not a mistake, there must be things that matter not because they solve a problem or address a need that we would rather do without but because they make life positively good. They would have what I've called "existential value." Art, pure science, theoretical philosophy: they have value of this kind. But so do mundane activities like telling funny stories, amateur painting, swimming or sailing, carpentry or cooking, playing games with family and friends—what the philosopher Zena Hitz has called "the little human things." It's not just that we need them in order to recharge so that we can get back to work, but that they are the point of being alive. A future without art or science or philosophy, or the little human things, would be utterly bleak. Since they will not survive unless we nurture them, that is our responsibility, too."

— Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way by Kieran Setiya
https://a.co/5uTBYTG

Only live once, Snoopy?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CqthjJyo-g7/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

"How to Build a Life"-Arthur Brooks, in The Atlantic

 A column about pointing yourself toward happiness...

ArthurBrooks.com

Four habits of happy people

#1 is move...

What makes you happy? Maybe it's getting up early to see the sunrise, hanging out with family and friends on a weekend, or going for a dip in the sea. But what does science say about the things happy people do?
We know that happy people tend to have strong relationships, good physical health and contribute regularly to their communities... https://theconversation.com/four-habits-of-happy-people-as-recommended-by-a-psychologist-197326

Go outside

Prescribed time in nature linked to improvements in anxiety, depression and blood pressure
Researchers say there are interlinked benefits across mental and physical health from prescribed time in green spaces or near bodies of water.


theguardian.com/environment/20...
#MentalHealth #health #nature 🌿

https://anfield.social/@stephen/110151645602246208

Happy Fins

Finland has 'more equitable schools, where you are likely to get a good education whichever you choose… (almost all Finns go to their nearest school) …a housing policy with a wide variety of social housing…, a health service with waiting times that are the envy of the world – sometimes just being a matter of days (even during the worst years of the pandemic) – and numerous other accolades.'

https://mastodon.social/@YasminAli/110150867595106591

The Finnish Secret to Happiness? Knowing When You Have Enough.

On March 20, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network released its annual World Happiness Report, which rates well-being in countries around the world. For the sixth year in a row, Finland was ranked at the very top.

But Finns themselves say the ranking points to a more complex reality.

"I wouldn't say that I consider us very happy," said Nina Hansen, 58, a high school English teacher from Kokkola, a midsize city on Finland's west coast. "I'm a little suspicious of that word, actually."

Ms. Hansen was one of more than a dozen Finns we spoke to — including a Zimbabwean immigrant, a folk metal violinist, a former Olympian and a retired dairy farmer — about what, supposedly, makes Finland so happy. Our subjects ranged in age from 13 to 88 and represented a variety of genders, sexual orientations, ethnic backgrounds and professions. They came from Kokkola as well as the capital, Helsinki; Turku, a city on the southwestern coast; and three villages in southern, eastern and western Finland.

While people praised Finland's strong social safety net and spoke glowingly of the psychological benefits of nature and the personal joys of sports or music, they also talked about guilt, anxiety and loneliness. Rather than "happy," they were more likely to characterize Finns as "quite gloomy," "a little moody" or not given to unnecessary smiling…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/01/world/europe/finland-happiness-optimism.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The Finnish Secret to Happiness? Knowing When You Have Enough.