Happiness, or "human flourishing"

I've been reading two books on happiness lately and am enjoying both of them.

The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

I actually have already read the latter, but I enjoyed it so much I bought it recently. The former is a book from Bruce's book club so we've been reading it together.

I like that both books are very tactical and pragmatic. For instance, in The Happiness Advantage, we learn several proven activities that increase happiness, which are as follows (not a complete list):

1. Meditate daily
2. Always have something to look forward to
3. Perform 5 conscious (premeditated) acts of kindness daily
4. Spend 20 minutes outside in good weather (daily if possible)
5. Exercise
6. Spend money on experiences and gifts
7. Spend time with dogs (and other animals)

There are also several flavors of happiness. These can include:
Inspiration
Awe
Gratitude
Love
Joy
Serenity
Interest
Hope
Pride
Amusement

Basically, the goal is to have pleasure+engagement+meaning. We need to be contributing and creating with purpose. Also some pleasure must be derived to prevent burn out.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

I'm in the midst of reading this book and I want to mark several passages so that I can remember them. Hopefully some of you will like them as much as I do.


The following passages highlight Frankl's conclusions on finding meaning in life:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. (page 75)

An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only his creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. (page 76)

I once read a letter written by a young invalid, in which he told a friend that he had just found he would not live for long, that even an operation would be of no help. He wrote further that he remembered a film he had seen in which a man was portrayed who waited for death in a courageous and dignified way. The boy had thought it a great accomplishment to meet death so well. Now—he wrote—fate was offering him a similar chance. (page 77) 

Details of a particular man's inner greatness may ... come to [your] mind*, like the story of the young woman whose death I witnessed in a concentration camp. It is a simple story. There is little to tell and it may sound as if I had invented it: but to me it seems like a poem.

This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness." Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk to this tree," she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It said to me, 'I am here—I am here—I am life, eternal life.'" 

 *One that comes to my mind is my dear friend Kate who faced long months of pain with dignity and faith until her eventual death.

Book Review: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I finished reading this today & posted the following review on GoodReads:


This is a love story: the love story of Steve Jobs and Apple. 

I say that because that really is the primary thread of this biography. If you don't like reading about technology, you will struggle in parts. If you do, then it is a fascinating, albeit long, read. Indeed, for the last few nights I would end up dreaming about some of Jobs & co.'s creative processes -- no small feat since I'm not an engineer :) 

Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs was a compelling personality and the primary reason why there is, I think, a sort of romanticism to Apple -- because he loved it. This book is receiving, rightly so, a lot of buzz and it really must be read by those who have spent any time in Silicon Valley as well as those who love Apple (or, for that matter, Pixar). 

A few standouts (of many): 1) The Woz is a sweetheart (which we already knew), 2) The perspective from one of Jobs' colleagues that his temper tantrums (to put it nicely) are expressions of passion. I think that helped the reader see where that kind of behavior came from. And truly, passion was both Jobs' strength and his weakness. 

Isaacson did a lovely job drawing the themes together, putting harsh light on Jobs while still letting him shine. Well done.

To the Lighthouse

And all the lives we ever lived
and all the lives to be,
are full of trees and changing leaves,

she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened the book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so she felt she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up under petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white, or this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all.

I finally finished reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I loved the passage above - I think it is a wonderful way to articulate the processing of any kind of art or media that we find beautiful without perhaps even understanding why or what it means. It may even sum up how I feel about this book. Maybe.

The book is definitely a modern piece and, as I've implied above, I haven't quite digested it yet. Not because it's shocking or bizarre or overwhelming, but because it is very much the style of that period (It was published in the late 20s) so it is more about what the characters are thinking and their own subjective experiences than it is about a narrative. That being said, there is a plot and the writing is good. It's just the author isn't leading you down a path but rather presenting you with the insides of the characters' heads in about as organized a fashion as she can. It's a short novel and I think I may reread it next month. It reminds me in some ways of Willa Cather's The Professor's House in both the style and my own response to it.

Okay, that's all.