Too soon to tell?

It used to be that there was a clear enough pattern of happiness, dependent on the stage of life and the responsibilities, expectations and understanding one had at each point. It certainly made a lot of sense:

 


The news today, however, is that the youth – those under 30 – are extremely unhappy. But how should we measure happiness? How can we encourage it? And is it possible to truly know if we are happy... while we are still alive?
...

...Is it true that a fulfilled life can only be measured once everything is said and done? Many of the classical thinkers certainly thought so. Solon was not arguing that men like Tellus and Biton were happier in death than in life. He was not referring to the great hereafter.

Solon was arguing that a full accounting of happiness can only be known once the life of a citizen is laid out start to finish. Only then can we see if somebody has achieved virtue, self-sufficiency, and all other good things that the ancients believed to be paramount to a “good life”...

https://substack.com/home/post/p-146883124

"Happiest Place on Earth"

When Disneyland opened its gates to the public for the first time on this day in 1955, visitors had been waiting in line since 2 a.m. to get inside the "Happiest Place on Earth".

In the first ten weeks, the park hosted more than one million guests, and soon became a favorite spot of visiting foreign dignitaries, from Indian Prime Minister Nehru to the King of Nepal.

https://www.threads.net/@americanexperiencepbs/post/C9ikuLKPrG0/?xmt=AQGzyFgnTbQfUahVRj4_xJzMXUviIgMeSSl6iNsejxl-_A

Have a nice life

"Our research suggests it's really not acceptable that some people are able to have a pleasant or satisfying time being alive."

https://www.theonion.com/report-it-not-fair-other-people-get-to-enjoy-their-liv-1851573097

All That Happiness Is

All That Happiness Is
By Adam Gopnik
Narrated by Adam Gopnik

Accomplishment is happier than achievement, making the pursuit of happiness intrinsically rewarding.

Listen on Audible:
https://www.audible.com/pd/B0D6NMQ9CF?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp

How to Avoid Work: A 1949 Guide to Doing What You Love – The Marginalian

"…Actually, there is only one way in this world to achieve true happiness, and that is to express yourself with all your skill and enthusiasm in a career that appeals to you more than any other. In such a career, you feel a sense of purpose, a sense of achievement. You feel you are making a contribution. It is not work..."
https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/12/14/how-to-avoid-work/

Joy in the flowers

“Happy are those who sing with all their heart, from the bottoms of their hearts. To find joy in the sky, the trees, the flowers. There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” —Henri Matisse

 

What Does Freud Still Have to Teach Us?

Come for the Oedipus complex. Stay for the later troubled musings on the fate of humanity.

...he had written the most influential biography of us—of man, a creature of pleasure who had been civilized into unhappiness, and of mankind, its members instinctively bound by Eros and aggression...

Merve Emre, NYer 

--

On Getting the Life You Want

by Adam Phillips

Both Freud’s psychoanalysis and Rorty’s pragmatism tell us, in their different ways, why wanting matters, and also that wanting has become the thing we most want to know about, as though now we are simply our wants.
…
In an implicit critique of, among other things, American pragmatism, Charles Taylor, in The Ethics of Authenticity, defines his notion of a moral ideal: ‘I mean a picture of what a better or higher mode of life would be where “better” and “higher” are defined not in terms of what we happen to desire or need, but offer a standard of what we ought to desire.’ Rorty’s work always runs the risk of seeming to promote a kind of capricious, impulsive egotism.

...it tends to idealise both autonomy and the self; to privilege our capacity for making choices over whatever it is about ourselves that we are unaware of. It privileges experiments in living over the need for safety. Psychoanalysis with pragmatism, and pragmatism with psychoanalysis, however, seem unusually promising for helping you get the life you want. Unless, of course, there is something you want more than the life you want. LRB

Happiest cities

"After looking at all their data, it named the tiny town of Aarhus, Denmark, as the happiest in the world. But just a few spots down, it added Minneapolis, to its "Gold" ranked list, making it the No. 1 in the U.S."

https://www.travelandleisure.com/minneapolis-named-the-happiest-city-in-united-states-8659687

Aristotle & the Stoics

While Aristotle thinks it's just obvious that the good life depends in part on 'externals' like health and access to resources, the Stoics think the value of someone's life — and the limits of their happiness — should not be judged or imposed according to circumstances outside their control.

Who do you side with?
https://philosophybreak.com/articles/aristotle-vs-the-stoics-what-does-happiness-require/?utm_source=threads&utm_medium=social&utm_content=existentialism

"These Books Might Make You Happier"

"With the pandemic receding and a fraught election season looming, Americans seem more concerned than ever about mental health — yours, mine and that of the next leader of the free world. According to the C.D.C., a whopping 57.2 million Americans a year make visits to the physician where the primary diagnosis turns out to be a mental disorder. That's a whole lot of anxiety and depression.

Not surprisingly, there's a small library of titles that touch on these subjects in different ways. Most are pretty bad; I don't need to spend $30 for someone to tell me that the secret to stress reduction is a combination of affirmations, nature walks and journaling. But a few new books offer fresh approaches to seeking contentment and peace..."

nyt