The finding that pursuing happiness is associated with negative outcomes may lead us down a pessimistic path. Should we simply give up and resign to being miserable? The success of several happiness-enhancing interventions, however, suggests that pursuing happiness could lead to greater happiness if people do it in the right way.
The authors suggest: 1) setting lower standards for what will make you happy; 2) having more accurate knowledge about what does and does not make you happy; 3) not measuring your emotions against your desired happiness, but accepting your emotions whatever they are; 4) making your happiness-seeking behavior less conscious and more habitual.
And a scientific article, Vanishing time in the pursuit of happiness. It summarizes four studies that "consistently reveal the same pattern: reduced feelings of time availability while pursuing happiness."
This totally happens to me when I use cannabis. Because I'm only high about ten percent of the time, and it makes certain things a lot better, I always feel the need to optimize my high time. So I might start playing a song, and then cut it off because I'm not enjoying it enough. Then when I'm sober, even though I'm enjoying the music less, my expectations are lower, so I'll listen to the whole thing.
Anyway, I found that link in this essay, What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness. As a frequent and mediocre swimmer, I totally know this: if you focus on how many seconds it takes to swim a lap, you end up swimming aggressively with sloppy form. The better strategy is to focus purely on having good form, and not care about your speed, and in the long term, you swim faster.
]]>"Food has become such a dream world," O'Rourke, the marketing economist, told me recently. He was ruminating on so-called superfoods and on the way food marketing tends to focus on "extrinsic qualities" -- a brand, a logo, a story -- more than the food itself. We want what we eat to save our lives; to reflect our worldliness, the uniqueness of our identities; to fulfill our desire for the new and interesting. One result is that some of the most staple of staples -- things like bread or milk or apples -- are having a hard time competing.
If you get Hanson talking about his seahorses, he'll tell you exactly how many times he's seen them (997), who is dating whom, and describe their personalities with intimate familiarity. Bathsheba is stoic, Daphne a runner. Deep Blue is chill.
And The 50 Best New Board Games, where new means the last five or ten years. I've only played two on the list. Root has highly asymmetrical design (meaning the different factions play differently) and great visual design, but I just didn't think the gameplay was fun. And Spirit Island is my favorite board game. It's both asymmetrical and cooperative, and so complex that you really have to focus. You play nature spirits trying to stop an island from being colonized.
]]>Read the literature on invasive species, and you'll find scientific objectivity discarded in favor of language usually found in wartime propaganda: peaceful communities menaced by aggressive invaders. Why?
Greer argues that it's because we see nature as static and not resilient. I think it's also ego. Humans want all ecological influence to come from human agency.
]]>This article is pure black comedy: How We Realized Putting Radium in Everything Was Not the Answer. I wonder what radium-like thing we're doing now.In summary: human civilization is going to collapse, probably soon. It may actually be happening right now. Barring WWIII or an asteroid hitting the earth, it will not be quick. It will be slow, it will be uneven, and it will likely take a century or more before we hit the bottom. The collapse will not be the end.