Author Topic: Talking Heads ~ Happiness  (Read 20344 times)

BooksAdmin

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Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« on: March 23, 2009, 05:08:04 PM »
Talking Heads

"It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting..."
Herbert Bayard Swope, creator of the Op-Ed page.


A two week  forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.


Our Second Selection is:  The Pursuit of Happiness


What IS Happiness? What makes you happy?  Where does happiness  come from? Why do some people always seem to have a half full glass? Is it true (as stated in one of the sub articles here) that happiness is contagious? Can you get a case of "happy" from being around happy people?

 A new study just out in the March 20 issue of Science suggests that a perfect stranger may be more to accurately predict whether you'll like something than you are. How is that possible? What does that say about us? Have we become a nation of plugged in junkies who rely on televisions and the opinions of others to even enjoy something?

Is this why we read book reviews? Is this why we listen to movie critics?

Do you think as we age that we become who we were as children? If we were morose as children are we morose adults, only more so? Read this provocative article and/ or sub articles and give us your own thoughts on what constitutes happiness.


Here is the original article,  and some intriguing  sub articles on Happiness in Time Magazine: this article is listed in the Health section of the magazine, what has happiness to do with health?

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1886607,00.html

Let's talk about the Pursuit of Happiness, has it gone too far, why are strangers more able to predict if we'll be happy and is it contagious?

Discussion Leader: Ginny

ginny

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2009, 05:24:21 PM »
Welcome! The Pursuit of Happyness is apparently not just a movie, it's a state of being, or what is it? Can you "will" yourselfl to be happy? Will, as some studies suggested a year or so ago smiling CAUSE you as a result to be happy? Can you make yourself happy? Should you? What IS "happiness?"

Now a new study released March 20th in Science Magazine and linked in the heading  shows that...well it's pretty unbelievable, but you can read it for yourself: strangers are more able to predict whether or not you'll like something or be happy with the result than you are.

Huh?

That sort of begs the question,  and it's something I have wanted to discuss for a long time: WHAT is TV doing to us? Not only TV but the mass media? Why do we need somebody ELSE to TELL us if we are going to like something?  If I could find a good article on the effects of mass media on us,  I'd love to kick it around especially since your local newspaper may NOT be coming much longer, they're dying out daily (mine is so small now it is pitiful).

But why kill trees? We must discuss that one and the effects on the small town, but Babi has brought us this amazing article, thank you so much, Babi, and it's from, among others, Time Magazine and their Health sections.

What has happiness to do with health?

What IS happiness? I've heard people say you can't "find happiness." The harder you look for it the less chance you have of finding it. Is that true?

What do you think of a study which has these results? Is "Happiness" catching?

Let's discuss!

I'll start by saying there is NO way somebody will be able to tell what I am going to enjoy in food or in books or anything else, nobody knows us the way we do. But they say not. They say we all think of ourselves as unique individuals...er......

What do you think? Can we try this out somehow? hahahaa Let's figure out how to try this out right here.

Everybody is welcome, it's an amorphous subject. What would you say on average tho, time wise, percentage wise,  of the day that  the average person spends daily looking for this ephemeral quality?

mrssherlock

  • Posts: 2007
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2009, 05:25:19 PM »
Yanh! Yanh!  I get to be first!  Seriously, the concept of happiness is somewhat foreign in this stage of my life.  This will be a stretch for my feeble brain.  I bought my ticket so I'll stay 'til the end of the line, so to speak.
Jackie
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

mrssherlock

  • Posts: 2007
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2009, 06:05:14 PM »
Oops!  I should have said changes in my happiness do not account for much of my thinking these days.  Sorry.  There are some interesting sociological findings which pertain loosely to this topic.  Hope I can find the citations.
Jackie
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

ginny

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2009, 06:12:57 PM »
hahaha YOU are first! I was just sitting here thinking about the topic, watching the news,  and a commercial came on and it struck me: do you ever see any UNhappy looking models selling anything?

 Do we trust a man smiling happily talking to us more  than we do one scowling?

Think even of the Presidential Debates: Nixon versus Kennedy. Why was it thought Nixon lost?

Do we have a perception that Success= Happy? Is that true?

Maybe this happiness thing is more pervasive than we've even thought of. :)

ALF43

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2009, 09:00:45 PM »
I love this topic of happiness:  "high spitits, glee, jubilation."
 I love the adjectives describing that word or can that word be used as an adjective?  HAPPY?  I shall return on this note. HAPPY is  verb, it denote action.  But a happy soul?  How about a happy face?
Try smiling at a group of Senior citizens or little babies all the way through the mall.  Make an attempt to "work the room" with a happy countenance or or an air of delight and see how people respond to you.
  We are all challenged in this day and age to spread this word of joy.  It is something that I try to accomplish daily.  Sadly, I do not always perform as I would like but ---happiness , as fleeting as it may be, is essential to our good health and affiliation with our fellow man.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.  ~James Russell Lowell

Pat

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2009, 10:28:13 PM »
Happiness

Doing what you like -- and liking what you do -- and smiling all the way thru.

maryz

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2009, 10:42:28 PM »
I don't like to read or listen to reviews of books or movies or concerts before I experience them.  Then sometimes I like to read a review to compare my opinion to the reviewers.  IMHO, too often, the reviewer tells more of the story than I want to know before I read it.
"When someone you love dies, you never quite get over it.  You just learn how to go on without them. But always keep them safely tucked in your heart."

jane

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2009, 08:12:58 AM »
Quote
do you ever see any UNhappy looking models selling anything?

Yes, there are a lot of unhappy models selling medicines...depression medications "to ask your doctor about," over-the-counter meds/products for various ailments and conditions.

I agree with you, Mary. The reviewers tell way too much and I fail to understand why his/her view should ever come close to what I might like.  Reading choices are like art...nobody else should pick out what they like and give it to you or expect you to like it too.  [I had a sister-in-law who was upset when her new daughter-in-law didn't hang a large art work in the living room.  The SIL would have been the FIRST person to complain loudly and publicly if someone else had tried that with her!]

  I also dislike having people "insist" I take a book they've read ...saying, "you'll love it."  Nope...hasn't happened yet.  So, I take it, keep it forever and then return it to the "giver" saying I just haven't had time to get to it.  I guess it's about my right to read and enjoy what I like and when I like.  In the same vein, I dislike people deciding that one genre of literature is worthy, but another is "beneath" a literate person. Hello?  Who made them the Literature Emperor?

Geez...can you tell I have a fierce "independent" streak??? ;)


Quote
Do we have a perception that Success= Happy? Is that true?
  Probably...if the individual is allowed to use his OWN criteria for what "success" is. 

jane

maryz

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2009, 09:07:20 AM »
jane, one of John's cousins became obsessed with a recent group featured on a PBS special and DVD.  I gather it plays constantly at their house.  When they came through here for an overnight, they wanted us to "enjoy" it with them.  We knew they'd be here only a few hours, and said we'd watch it later - just wanted to spend time with them.  But, NO.  That wouldn't do - so we watched about half of it, listening to a running commentary.  When it finally got turned off, they left it here.  We never watched it, but returned it to them, telling them that it was indeed wonderful and thanking them for loaning it to us.  Just a little white lie.  ::) ::)    It is a good program, and we probably would have watched and enjoyed it, if it hadn't been forced on us.
"When someone you love dies, you never quite get over it.  You just learn how to go on without them. But always keep them safely tucked in your heart."

Babi

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2009, 09:13:47 AM »
Quote
Do we trust a man smiling happily talking to us more  than we do one scowling? Think even of the Presidential Debates: Nixon versus Kennedy. Why was it thought Nixon lost?
...from Ginnny
  Hmm. I think I may be less vulnerable to advertising that the average person,
as my Dad used to point out half-truths and evasions as we watched ads. Like the ones that sound like they will resolve your problem, but actually say "aids in the relief of..."

  Good point about the debates. Most recently, you remind me of the difference between John McCain and Obama during their debates. McCain was usually frowning and appearing tense and irritated.

ALF, I always smile at babies; I can't help it. As for a group of Senior citizens,
I join them twice a week and we all smile nicely.   :)

I don't know about that, JANE. I've certainly had a lot of recommendations from people here that have led to a lot of enjoyable reading. And while I don't read newspaper reviews, I have found some interesting books from reading things like "Bookpage" from the library. On the other hand, I used to find that what a certain movie reviewer extolled, I didn't like, and vice versa.



"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

jane

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2009, 09:52:49 AM »
Quote
I don't know about that, JANE. I've certainly had a lot of recommendations from people here that have led to a lot of enjoyable reading.

Yep, Babi...recommendations from others here are good. It's the "professional reviewers" who write entire columns on this or that book that I object to. They always tell me more about the book than I want to know...they need to fill all those inches of space, I guess. 

I hear you, Mary. I've returned books thrust upon me, literally, from well meaning people who are SURE I'll love the book with the same sort of response.

jane


mrssherlock

  • Posts: 2007
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #12 on: March 24, 2009, 04:15:34 PM »
I've read the sources cited and I am unmoved.  Happiness is a measure of life that matters more to young people than to oldies like me.  My goals are more pragmatic.  This does not mean that I am unhappy.  On the whole I am content with my life and my conduct.  Maybe it is my definition of happiness = giddy, ecstatic, joyous, floating on air,  etc.    Happiness is also associated with unplanned success, like winning the lottery.  As the article states, I have eliminated what doesn't please me (except paying bills).   And the opinions of others matter little to me.  My family is reserved rather than exuberant.  I no longer hear my mother's voice telling me what to do and not do, what to like and not like.  So I guess I'm out of step for this discussion.  But it's interesting to read how others think and feel about this. 
Jackie
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

Steph

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2009, 04:44:56 PM »
Happiness.. I try really hard to go through each day smiling at people and trying to communicate a joy of living. I guess I know too many people who seem determined not to be happy or joyful. I like living a lot better smiling than I did when I frowned and got angry a lot. Ifind that trying hard to find a silver lining each day is good for me. I used to get a number of stupid illnesses and determine that they were the reason if I was unhappy. Now I try to see whatever is the brighter end and it helps me enormously. Both of my parents died relatively young and I have always wanted to live each day as if it were a gift.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

lucky

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #14 on: March 24, 2009, 05:21:24 PM »
This is truly a great topic to discuss.  The best definition of happiness is that of Schopenhauer.  "Happiness", he wrote, is the absence of pain".
The word pain in this definition is not necessarily physical.  In our lives we experience much emotional, spiritual, and psychological pain.  To be able to overcome even a fraction of these experiences  gives one cause to be happy.  On a lighter note, when I read a review of a movie and the reviewer raves about it or rates it four stars,  I know that I will not care for it.  I can't tell you how many four star movies I've seen that I disliked, not only disliked, but disliked intensely.

maryz

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #15 on: March 25, 2009, 05:37:36 AM »
How timely for our discussion! 
Every day I check A Word A Day and the last thing on each day's page is a Thought for the Day.  This is today's "thought"...

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or augment our means - either will do - the result in the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however hard it may be to diminish your wants, it will be harder to augment your means. If you are active and prosperous or young and in good health, it may be easier for you to augment your means than to diminish your wants. But if you are wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, rich or poor, sick or well; and if you are very wise you will do both in such a way as to augment the general happiness of society. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
"When someone you love dies, you never quite get over it.  You just learn how to go on without them. But always keep them safely tucked in your heart."

Sandy

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #16 on: March 25, 2009, 08:33:28 AM »

  The older we get, I think the truer that statment is about Happiness. In a face to face book group we once voted 60 as the happiest age. Unanimously. At the time most members were in early to mid seventies.

 At seventy five I am amazed at the value of each  day. So many of my friends were denied the opportunity to reach this stage of life. I try to enjoy the time they so desperately wanted to have and couldn't. I think we find  are able to find happiness in the smallest  detail of our days. Yesterday the sight of a robin splashing in our bird bath was enough to make me happy even as I watch my husband leaving me with his Alzheimer's disease.

  Sandra

Babi

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #17 on: March 25, 2009, 10:10:35 AM »
Steph, I made the startling discovery, years ago, that changing my attitude
toward a situation set me free from my angst over it. The circumstances hadn't
change, but my thinking had, and I was much happier for it.

  Great quote, MARYZ.

SANDY, I couldn't agree more. I don't know how often I have been caught by
the play of light and shadow as sunlight streamed through the trees. The
interlude invariably leaves me feeling peaceful and content. And I always
stop and watch if I spot a blue bird or a cardinal in one of my trees.
There have been moments of natural beauty so intense that they took me
quite out of myself, which I think is always a good thing.
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

ALF43

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #18 on: March 25, 2009, 11:46:18 AM »
What a wonderful, deep, insightful discussion you have made.
Maryz- Franklins quote was in the 1700's and each day, here in the 21st century, it still resonates.

Sandy- that is a wonderful tribute to all those you love and have had the joy of loving.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.  ~James Russell Lowell

Steph

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #19 on: March 25, 2009, 04:48:52 PM »
My greatest joy in the past few months have been giving a new life to a rescue corgi. Gracie came into our lives in pain and fear. To watch her blossom and laugh and now reach out and attempt to play has brought me such joy.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Pat

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #20 on: March 25, 2009, 04:55:45 PM »
Talking Heads

"It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting..."
Herbert Bayard Swope, creator of the Op-Ed page.


A two week  forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.


Our Second Selection is:  The Pursuit of Happiness


What IS Happiness? What makes you happy?  Where does happiness  come from? Why do some people always seem to have a half full glass? Is it true (as stated in one of the sub articles here) that happiness is contagious? Can you get a case of "happy" from being around happy people?

 A new study just out in the March 20 issue of Science suggests that a perfect stranger may be more to accurately predict whether you'll like something than you are. How is that possible? What does that say about us? Have we become a nation of plugged in junkies who rely on televisions and the opinions of others to even enjoy something?

Is this why we read book reviews? Is this why we listen to movie critics?

Do you think as we age that we become who we were as children? If we were morose as children are we morose adults, only more so? Read this provocative article and/ or sub articles and give us your own thoughts on what constitutes happiness.


Here is the original article,  and some intriguing  sub articles on Happiness in Time Magazine: this article is listed in the Health section of the magazine, what has happiness to do with health?

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1886607,00.html

Let's talk about the Pursuit of Happiness, has it gone too far, why are strangers more able to predict if we'll be happy and is it contagious?

Discussion Leader: Ginny

straudetwo

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #21 on: March 25, 2009, 11:28:53 PM »
Very thoughtful posts, all of them.

I believe that, sadly, there is more unhappiness in this world than happiness.  And yes, Ginny,  some people are born unhappy and impossible to please. 
Life with a permanently unhappy, hypercritical, impossible-to-please individual casts a very long shadow. 

What I have aspired to all my life is not so much happiness per se - perhaps because I don't think it exists, except possibly only for fleeting moments,  but harmony,  tolerance, understanding, peace.




straudetwo

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  • Massachusetts
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #22 on: March 25, 2009, 11:38:29 PM »
P.S.  Perhaps it is the small things that give us pleasure and a modicum of happiness.


Steph

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #23 on: March 26, 2009, 09:05:34 AM »
I always did not understand why my mother-in-law was so unhappy. She never took joy in anything. Always wanted what others had not what she did. It made her very hard to be around.She never felt that my husband did what she thought he should. I did not raise the children properly. She simply announced when she was coming and always prefaced it with.."all of my friends are going to their childrens, so I willbe coming" . Then when she got to our house, we had to stop our lives and try to entertain her. When my children got older and I refused to make our lives stop for her, she whined constantly when she visited. I have never understood what was lacking in her life. I do know that my husband stopped trying to make her happy.. So sad really.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

mrssherlock

  • Posts: 2007
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #24 on: March 26, 2009, 01:20:04 PM »
Steph:  Sounds like my mother.  It's like somewhere there is a party going on, lots of fun and people, but she wasn't invited so nothing else pleases.  When I realized, finally, that I could never please her it freed me to do for her what I wanted to do for my mother, not this unhappy "victim" of life. 
Jackie
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

ALF43

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #25 on: March 26, 2009, 01:59:01 PM »
Speaking of happiness- remember when all of us laughed and enjoyed the humor of the "clowns?"  I received this today, sit back and be HAPPY.  I miss these people so much and there are only a couple left.



laugh with the clowns
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.  ~James Russell Lowell

Steph

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #26 on: March 27, 2009, 04:39:45 PM »
Pure Joy?? I saw it this morning in Dunkin Donuts. A tiny litle boy got his donut in his own bag and the look on his face brought everyone in the place to a full smile. His enchantment made you remember the first times in your life.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Babi

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #27 on: March 28, 2009, 10:04:17 AM »
Oh, Steph, thanks for sharing that little gem. I wish I had been there to see him.
I am reminded of the look on my brother's face so many years ago when my husband, planning on buying us a new car, announced to him that he could have our old one.  Wonder, delight and incredulity all struggling for expression!
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

Steph

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #28 on: March 28, 2009, 10:41:49 AM »
It is always my intention to store away those awesome moments you can witness. Some times because you are involved, but others like the Dunkin moment, when you simply are a bystander. Life is short, store up joy.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

nlhome

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #29 on: March 28, 2009, 02:02:37 PM »
Just marking so I remember to come back.

Babi

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #30 on: March 28, 2009, 08:48:12 PM »
I just lost an entire post!  Drat!
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

Steph

  • Posts: 7952
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #31 on: March 29, 2009, 09:47:49 AM »
For some reason I thought last night about the Beat generation of poets.. Now they dispised happiness. They only wanted to run everything down. My cousin who always lived with us adored the Beat poets, came home after college, painted her room black, walls,ceiling and floor. Moved the mattress to the floor and slept on that, grew her hair out and generally acted as if the world was coming to an end tomorrow. She got really bent out of shape, when my Dad howled with laughter and told her that she had provided him with the best moment he had had for years.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Babi

  • Posts: 6732
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #32 on: March 29, 2009, 09:56:46 AM »
Okay, having had a night's sleep I am ready to try again with that post.

  Remember this from the article: "..people who try to imagine how much they will like or dislike a future event (a blind date, say) are usually wildly off the mark.."
  That makes sense to me.  Don't you find that often, in thinking about an upcoming event, you have certain hopes and expectations? Or perhaps, fears and insecurities?  It's almost impossible to accurately predict what your reaction will truly be, since you are so emotionally involved.

  I knew a person who believed that attaining something they wanted was the key to their happiness.  If they didn't get what they wanted they could be difficult to live with.  If they did get it, they soon found that it didn't make that much difference and certainly didn't satisfy them.  So they would soon demand something else that they believed would make them happy.  Sad, really.
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

ginny

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #33 on: March 29, 2009, 11:19:32 AM »
Yes and I don't think anybody can predict something somebody else would like! How can that be, we're all so different! Even here where we are hardly strangers, I don't believe you could predict what I might like to read or eat or anything else! Those of you who are new, we need to hear from you in this, you're not strangers any more but we don't have 12 years of reading opinions, please do chirp in.

We can try it, if you like. I'll go first, somebody predict if I would like foie gras?

??

Then you can ask your own question and we'll predict, let's test it out.

Would I like foi gras?


I think that study is flawed, or else influenced by something we're not being told, that's almost ridiculous.

I've been thinking about this topic a lot. I think some of you have been profound in your thoughts, and all have been interesting. Somebody mentioned the absence of pain. It's a truism that we don't appreciate while we have it good health until something happens and we lose it.

You can see sometimes when a movie star wins something or a team wins something and here come the reporters talking about the next project. Happiness is so fleeting, that actual triumphant moment will never come again. Other variations on that moment will come all happy, but that particular moment is SO fleeting.

I don't blame people for saying I just want to enjoy this moment. I don't think we do a lot of that, enjoying THIS moment.

I think one benefit in growing older IS the realization that this moment is limited and may not come again, and we need to be grateful for it.

As some of you know I keep my 2 year old grandbaby. I am conscious of every passing day that it won't come again and soon he'll be in school and gone. These days will not come again, ever. So I want to enjoy every minute if I can. What a difference in my own children and how, younger, I treated them, bless their hearts, I can see it.

If we're going somewhere and he wants to stop and smell the roses we do. I always heard that being a grandparent was different, I never understood why. It is.

But the change is in us.

I love travel. I get a lot of pleasure out of it. I like the excitement, I like making my own way and solving problems. It seems, for instance, harder for me to book a ferry  passage from Boulogne France to Dover England  than it was for Caesar to cross 2000 years ago. And about as long haahaha. (Frommers talks about a 6 hour ferry crossing from Calais to Dover for instance, I believe they call it "lousy.") hahaha  Yes I've done the Chunnel, many times. I want to experience the crossing as he did and go to Walmer Beach and Deal, and see the white cliffs come up and see what the tides are like.

  One woman traveler wrote that she got two trips: the planned one and the actual one which were usually quite different. I find that to be true and both are equally pleasurable. The hope and expectation of the first one and the little unexpected pleasures of the  reality of the second.

So, what do you think? Let's do a small experiment. Would I like foie gras?

You to say, let's play a little______________ And then ask us your own question.


mrssherlock

  • Posts: 2007
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #34 on: March 29, 2009, 03:02:20 PM »
I'm still stuck on this one.  I've really been trying.  reading all your comments and trying to apply them to my life.  Looking back at my life I can see lots of things I desired but never were given.  Like going for the the Sunday drive and passing the ice cream store without stopping.  I guess I was conditioned not to wish.  When good things happen it is chance.  Travel and dining are very enjoyable and I happily anticipate them but am not aware of an agenda. 

Will Ginny like foi gras?  I think you are so open to newness and discovery that you won't hate it but how much will you enjoy it?  Not a lot, I'd say.  And I can't think of a question, can't wonder if I will like any particular thing. 
Jackie
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

JoanR

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #35 on: March 29, 2009, 04:13:01 PM »
Ginny,  I think that as you most likely know how foie gras is made, you would not like it  I know that I couldn't touch it myself.  I
never could eat lamb or veal since I had the care of the baby calves on the farm as a child.  As an adult, I have given up meat but do eat chicken and fish.  I'm probably healthier for it and certainly easier in my mind.
 Now being easy in one's mind is a big component of happiness.  I think that I'm a happy person.  I find joy in lots of little things and find pleasure in the company of my pretty large family.  I'm proud of all of them.
I enjoy listening to music, going to art museums, and most of all, I find a great deal of pleasure in my books of which I probably have far too many.  I enjoy creating - sewing, cooking etc
I don't need a lot of other material things and don't "hanker" after them!

Would I like a long sea voyage?

ALF43

  • Posts: 1360
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #36 on: March 29, 2009, 06:18:57 PM »
Quote
Would I like foi gras?
  Ginny asks.

OK that is your question and now mine is:
Is that something to EAT or to smoke?
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.  ~James Russell Lowell

ginny

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Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #37 on: March 29, 2009, 07:49:48 PM »
hahaha Andrea, it's food. Oh good now we have another challenge.

Would Joan R like a long sea voyage? I've actually met Joan and so did you Andy at the 10th Annual Bookfest in NYC. Hmmm would she like a long sea voyage?

I've MET her and I have no idea, how can anybody have an idea here?

I'll say no.

 What do you say about Joan,  Andrea and what's your question about what you might like?


Jackie you should have been a diplomat, that's the most diplomatic answer I ever saw.  Ask us a question!



ALF43

  • Posts: 1360
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #38 on: March 30, 2009, 08:57:19 AM »
No!  I would say NO Joan doesn't like a long sea voyage.  She strikes me as a lady with more "focused" desires.  I'm sure Joan would much prefer traveling throughout museums and chatting with the staff or the on lookers.

As for me--hmm a question noone would know.
What , IMO, is the most important asset a person can have.

NO it is not honesty!  That is highly over rated!! ::)
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.  ~James Russell Lowell

JoanR

  • Posts: 1093
Re: Talking Heads ~ Happiness
« Reply #39 on: March 30, 2009, 09:00:32 AM »
Perhaps 2 things, Andrea:  The ability to love and to forgive