March 31, 2004
Eudaemonia
What's a happy life?
It can be three things, psychologist Martin Seligman says.
There's the pleasant life: the life full of positive emotions. That's the life buoyed by sunshine and smiles and, perhaps, Prozac.
There's also the meaningful life: the life connected to something greater than itself. That's the life devoted to an insitution, a religion, a family, a looong-term project.
And then there's this one:
... [E]udaemonia, the good life, which is what Thomas Jefferson and Aristotle meant by the pursuit of happiness. They did not mean smiling a lot and giggling. Aristotle talks about the pleasures of contemplation and the pleasures of good conversation. Aristotle is not talking about raw feeling, about thrills, about orgasms. Aristotle is talking about [the new-ish psychological theory of flow], and that is, when one has a good conversation, when one contemplates well. When one is in eudaemonia, time stops. You feel completely at home. Self-consciousness is blocked. You're one with the music.
I've been watching these nature documentaries lately and feeling vaguely jealous of all the creatures of the sea. Pardon the tautology, but they behave so naturally. Even fleeing from, you know, ravenous leopard seals, they seem somehow light and free.
And I don't want to get all anthropomorphic, but that's how flow feels. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (or Mihaly C., as I call him), the guy who wrote the book on flow, describes it like this:
The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.
I love that.
Seligman's essay isn't just about eudaemonia; he also talks about a new trend in modern psychology: a push to consider ways to increase happiness, not just ameliorate psychological suffering. It's really interesting, so go print it out and read it tonight.
... Read more ....Air Hysterica
Janeane Garofalo loses.
Her Air America program has been a long thread of facile partisan canards. Her usual drole, doubt-everything deadpan has been swapped for a much-less-compelling "Republicans are evil" refrain. She even used the phrase "corporate media."
Yeah, yeah, it's the first night, but they've opened with a flurry of publicity, and knowing that this may be their moment in the spotlight before dimming into obscurity, they might have taken the trouble to procure actual content. There's been a mishmash of decently high-profile guests -- Bill Maher, Atrios, Ben (of Ben & Jerry), Dave Chappelle -- but the conversation hasn't stepped beyond slinging mud at conservatives. Not even news peg mud (e.g. "Can you believe they smeared Dick Clarke?") -- generic mud (e.g. "They're corporate whores!").
I haven't had a good experience with talk radio, unless it's This American Life or Sound Portraits. Somehow, even though it's just the first night, I already have deep doubts about Air America raising the level of discourse on the medium.
It's About Time
Al Gore and his business partner Joel Hyatt have fiiinally sealed the deal on Newsworld, the NYO's Joe Hagan reports.
Newsworld, a digital cable channel, is pretty boring right now. I can corroborate this description:
Currently, Newsworld is a bit like something Bill Murray would flip on in the hotel in Lost in Translation: a two-minute dialogue-free video essay on squirrels, followed by the news about a freak rotating-door accident in a Tokyo shopping mall.
The deal is that the new Newsworld -- which will get a new name -- is going to be a public affairs channel for young people. Gore likes the idea of guerilla news: an army of kids with cheap DV cams, capturing (and editing and uploading and optionally adding a hip-hop soundtrack to) their world.
Here's more:
He was also a big fan of MTV