"Is Happiness Catching?"

In today's Times Magazine-

A key to happiness, say researchers, is "daily exposure to many small moments of contagious happiness. When you frequently see other people smile — at home, in the street, at your local bar — your spirits are repeatedly affected by your mirroring of their emotional state. Of course, the danger of being highly connected to lots of people is that you’re at risk of encountering many people when they are in bad moods. But Christakis and Fowler say their findings show that the gamble of increased sociability pays off, for a surprising reason: Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness. According to their statistical analysis, each additional happy friend boosts your good cheer by 9 percent, while each additional unhappy friend drags you down by only 7 percent. So by this logic, adding more links to your network should — mathematically — add to your store of happiness."

And:

[Happy subjects] influenced one another’s health just by socializing. And the same was true of bad behaviors — clusters of friends appeared to “infect” each other with obesity, unhappiness and smoking. Staying healthy isn’t just a matter of your genes and your diet, it seems. Good health is also a product, in part, of your sheer proximity to other healthy people."

So: have lots of healthy and happy friends, and try to give as good as you get. Infect someone with a smile. The "up" multiplier is stronger than the "down," positive good vibrations are contagious.

Happy feet

Football's back, the gaudy/violent spectacle of which makes some people very happy. Good for them. Personally, I pay no attention to football 'til baseball's done. I'll get back to y0u on the subject in November, after the Cards have taken the Yanks in six. (It'll be interesting if it happens; Older Daughter won't know who to root for.)

But I did appreciate this little appreciation of the game and all it represents from Amy Davidson, who reports that the Steelers' Hines Ward is the happiest man in football. Good, somebody needs to be. I actually am a Hines Ward fan, ever since I learned that he (like me) was a Randy Pausch fan.

Davidson gushes about Thursday night's Titans-Steelers opener:

At some point in the pregame show, between the Black-Eyed Peas shouting “Mazel Tov!” and Tim McGraw singing about Rosa Parks, Dolly Parton, and the Crimson Tide (it made sense), the spectacle, as well as the game, began to feel enormously appealing. There’s nothing wrong with letting a certain sort of All-Americanness wash over you."

I guess not. I'm sticking to one national pastime at at a time though, thanks.

But speaking of feet, the New Yorker also takes a bemused look at the Zappos happiness ("zappiness") franchise. The online shoe retailer's C.E.O, Tony Hsieh, turns out to be a fan of our next author in the Happiness class:

Soft-spoken and introverted, Hsieh has become an unlikely business guru: a young philosopher prince of the middle-management set, to whom he is fond of distributing an annual “Culture Book” of warbling testimonials collected from Zappos employees, as if it were the Gideon Bible, and recommending titles on the science of happiness, like “The Happiness Hypothesis,” by Jonathan Haidt, and “Happier,” by Tal Ben-Shahar. He is also writing a book of his own for Grand Central Publishing, tentatively titled “Delivering Happiness”—“a combination of talking about Zappos, the culture, core values, and the science of happinessss,” he said, stretching out the word. For Hsieh, happiness is a quantifiable quality that seems synonymous with “calm.”

“Generally, I associate drama with negative emotions, and I want to experience positive emotions,” he said.

Me too, me too!

Socrates

We're really beginning to look like an Art History seminar, aren't we? From the Thinker to the Wanderer, now to the courageously and cheerfully dying Questioner.

Alain de Botton found Socrates at the Met not long before me. Jacques-Louis David's 1786 "Death of Socrates" is an impressive, imposing piece, well worth postponing a Nesquick for. In Consolations of Philosophy he attests to another philosopher steeped in self-confidence against the onslaught of hysterical opposition, a rational confidence "grounded in philosophy," extending to us all "an invitation to intelligent skepticism."

Socrates was unpopular with the unreflective crowd, still a majority of his peers (and judges). But that didn't faze him, and it shouldn't faze us (though of course it often does). "Errors in our thought and way of life can [never] be proven simply by the fact that we have run into opposition. What should worry us is not the number of people who oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so." (That's an observation that should buoy the President's resolve on reforming health care, btw... but I hope he reads Michael Pollan on the subject too.)

This unwashed gadfly was prepared to hear (and evaluate) everyone's arguments. But he did not think that everyone's opinions were equally respectable. A bad argument is a bad argument, from whatever source. "One should respect the good ones..."

His accusers prosecuted him with atrocious arguments, yet he acceeded to the will of the majority and drank his hemlock. Bad choice, if you ask me. "We should not look to Socrates for advice on escaping a death sentence; we should look to him as an extreme example of how to maintain confidence in an intelligent position which has met with illogical opposition."

Bye, Sonja

Really enj0yed our last How of Happiness session this afternoon, despite literally losing my voice. But it'll be back, I promise. The new seating arrangement worked great, facing all our interlocutors really seemed to grease the conversational skids: everyone had lots to say. The rain outside didn't please some, but it cooled things off nicely for us; and isn't it always good to help the plants grow?

Kevin's question about cultural differences in people's (and peoples') various conceptions of happiness was hugely instigating, as we wondered (among other things) what more one could or should wish to say to cannibals and dog-eaters and ritual sacrificers (and whomever) to indicate discomfiture with their respective happiness ideals.

Is there a universal human nature to which we can appeal, in trying to adjudicate competing practices and the beliefs they rest on? Even if we assume substantial agreement among humans, what would or should we say to beings who possessed radically different "conceptual schemes" and renounced any interest in our notions of happiness? And is there a "greater good" (with respect to planetary ecology, material excess, public safety, personal predilections et al) that overrides our particular pursuits of happiness? Just a few of the challenging questions we generated and commented on today. Fun!

As we wave bye-bye to Sonja Lyubomirsky, I hope we all saw the practical value in trying to nail down our respective short lists of "happiness activities." I also hope we all have the chance to experience and cultivate that transcendent-ecstatic "Super-flow" she writes of.

I said in class, with my last thin rasp, that her summarizing point about the importance of forming solid happiness habits is strong. It complements her other big Jamesian point about "attention" as crucial to the possibility of living a good life.

I didn't get around to saying today that I also like another Jamesian (and Spinozist) point she makes, that "approach" behavior is better than "avoidance." Put another way: always seek your happiness under the positive aspect of good, sub specie bonum, rather than trying to get it through the back-door merely by pushing away the bad (sub specie mali). Minimizing misery is not the same as maximizing joy. And aspiring only to a flat-line condition, neither happy nor excessively sad, is selling short your potential for real flourishing.

One more thing: she selects really good epigrams. "My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate." (Thornton Wilder)

And I especially like this bit of seasoned wisdom from Santayana, in ch.10: "To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." Very true, particularly in September.

Now for Jonathan Haidt.

devouring the present

"There's a clever cartoon from the New Yorker... In the first panel a man is sitting at his desk and daydreaming about golf. In the second the same man is playing golf while fantasizing about sex. In the third, he's in bed with a woman while thinking about work."

Sonja Lyubomirsky's point? "Like [him] we habitually fail to enjoy, savor, and live in the present..."

Right. I couldn't find that cartoon, but this one makes a related point: not only do we deprive ourselves of our own vital present, too often we deprive those we love of theirs too:

The Happiness Box

"We have developed a machine, a box with some electrodes and a life-support system, which we call the 'happiness box.' If you get in the box, you will experience a powerfully pleasant sensation, which will continue indefinitely with just enough variation to keep you from getting too used to it. We invite you to try it. If you decide to do so, you can get out of the box any time you want to; but perhaps we should tell you that no one, once they have gotten into the happiness box, has ever wanted to get out of it. After ten hours or so, we hook up the life-support system, and people spend their lifetimes there. Of course, they never do anything else, so their bodies tend to resemble half-filled water beds after a few years because of the lack of exercise. But that never bothers them either. Now, it's your decision: Would you like to step into the happiness box? Why or why not?" (Solomon & Higgins, The Big Questions, 8th ed., 30)

This little thought experiment, inspired by the late Robert Nozick's Experience Machine and mimicked by Cypher's steak-seduction in "The Matrix," invites us to wonder: is there something privileged about "reality"?

More on this in The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real...

and Lyle Zynda asks if Cypher was right in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in the Matrix:

Nozick's idea is this: suppose you could deliberately and knowingly choose, as Cypher does in The Matrix, to be hooked up to a machine that would give you the experiences of having friends, fame, wealth, good looks, success, and whatever else makes you happy. After being hooked up, you'll forget about your past life, and you won't be unhooked from the machine later. Would you choose to be hooked up to the Experience Machine?

Nozick"s claim is that you wouldn't, if you thought about it seriously. You don't want just the experience of having friends and being loved. You want to really have friends and be loved. It is true that if you are friendless and unloved, you might be tempted to escape reality into fantasy. (Some people use drugs for this reason.) But you would prefer real friends to imaginary ones, if you could have them. The same goes for fame, wealth, good looks, success, and so on. Thus, experience (such as pleasure) is not what is of highest value...

If you're asking me: I prefer harsh reality, the occasional disappointing steak, and the company of the flesh-and-blood people in my life. They too, to be frank, are also occasionally disappointing (as I am to them). But they are never less than real.

bridge to everywhere

We traversed this grand old span several times during the past three days "on shanks' mare," while encamped just up the hill on the north side of the Tennessee River in Chattanooga. The Walnut Street Bridge is one of the longest pedestrian bridges in the world. Some of the festive mood we found on and around it must have been due to the holiday, but credit as well the way such a magnificently-useful structure knits a community and its places to navigably-human scale. I miss it already. It was wonderful to see so many happy people out and about, afoot and on bikes and other locomoting conveyances, at all hours of day and night, safely and cheerfully going and coming, and generally just sharing a lovely public space that takes you where you want to go. It's the way we all should live. I understand why this community makes the "most livable" lists. Viewing bridge travelers from Coolidge Park, at its feet, was a reminder that we're all skywalkers on this spherical bridge against the dark.

more on the mystery of happiness

Interesting discussion today, prompted by a student's very good question: how much is the happiness we derive from an activity (playing basketball, washing the dishes, studying, writing, teaching...) a direct reflection of what we bring to it, in the form of attitude, attention, and focus? That led to mention of Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's "flow," the state of "optimal experience" when we're immersed in our activities and time seems to slip away. If we could only learn to tap and direct the flow of our experience at will, the "deficit state" of unhappiness would just flow away. More on this later.

Continuing the earlier discussion of James and happiness:

An enduring paradox of our existence is that most of us are happiest when we are least troubled to understand why we are happy, when we resist the natural pull of our curiosity to reduce all phenomena to problems for research. Only when we are unhappy, or worse, do we seem to profit from explicit attention to whatever hidden biochemical or emotional mechanism it may be that results in our states of conscious weal and woe. That is when we can least afford to ignore the causal springs of our workaday selves, when we possess the lowest tolerance for our own compromised spontaneity.

The rest of the time, we probably do better not to look the gift horse of happiness too directly in the mouth. But are we most "spontaneously" ourselves when happy? Is mild depression normal and proper? Severe clinical depression is one thing; the Prozac-popping refusal of so many in our time to confront the objective causes of personal discontent is another. But James is finally a Jeffersonian in the matter of happiness, on the side of those who proclaim its pursuit by any self-regarding means a basic human entitlement.

So why not study our happiness? Do we risk the evaporation of mystery? It must be an evanescent mystery, indeed, that vanishes under critical investigative scrutiny. But maybe there is a greater risk of overlooking a mystery beneath all serial causation. Multiply-subjective experience is unspeakably richer than the stunted imagination of the philanthropic trustee who, when asked for examples of intractable mystery worthy of his foundation's research dollars, mentioned the dietary regimen of a random Frenchman on an arbitrary day in the fourteenth century... Springs of Delight

cosmic religion

Very interesting discussions today, centering on Einstein's 1930 New York Times Magazine essay exploring what he called the "cosmic religious feeling,"

the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand... A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.

Einstein famously endorsed "Spinoza's God," and a pantheistic universe the uncovering of whose laws is the object of all that rational devotion. That led us to consider the oft-bandied claim that atheists are paradoxically religious in their irreligion. That seems a stretch. But I'm happy to call them "spiritual," a term they may find no more agreeable than "religious"... but read Unweaving the Rainbow. Is that not a devout, inspired book?

happy beginning

We used the entire period, on the first day, to canvas our respective provisional definitions of our subject, happiness. Someone had to pantomime the "check your watch" gesture, to cut off the flow of responses. Very good omen.

Already we're into questions about whether its pursuit in our society is too focused on individual or "subjective" perceptions of personal well-being, what "reality" should have to do with such perceptions, and if it's possible to be happily oneself in an unhappy community or a declining culture. The early consensus seems to be that each of us must take responsibility for assessing the conditions of our own flourishing, that we must be open to the possibility of our good coming from the last places we'd ever expect, and that we should be prepared to jettison others' expectations (and sometimes our own, as in the case of Michael Gates Gill).

I'm pleased to note how few of us have bought into the superficial brand-identity, pre-packaged and commodified versions of happiness-for-sale at retail. We're all pretty clear, it seems, that "pleasure" is not our quarry. "Joy" is something different too, Older Daughter points out.

Flipping through some of our written definitions: "Happiness will never come in the future," says one. I assume that means not that our prospects are dim, but that positive experience must be present to be felt. Another writes of getting "lost in the moment, neither worrying about the future nor regretting the past." Absence of worry recurs. Many mention the variability, from person to person, of happy-making conditions. One size does not fit all. And many insist it's a big mistake to get too invested in, or dependent on, externals.

But I still want to know if it's ok for me to say I'm happy with my iTouch.