Wow, has it really been a week since I last blogged?
I had an interview with a company this morning. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Wish me luck. In the meantime, Friday is my last day of work at my job.
Last night we watched the season finale of Veronica Mars. Kuh-razy insane. Season finale season (does that make sense? only in the way that “player piano player” makes sense in The Music Man) is upon us. All those cliffhangers and goodbyes, and then maybe I can pull Matt away from the TV for the summer. Or at least until July, when the Stargate franchise resumes.
If you enjoy the new Battlestar Galactica, you must see these caricatures.
A week from tomorrow night I’m going to spend five and a half hours watching Parsifal at the Met. Um, it seemed like a good idea two and a half months ago.
I enjoyed Sunday’s review of the book Stumbling on Happiness in the Times. One Amazon.com reviewer summarizes the book’s salient points:
1) We often exaggerate in imagining the long-term emotional effects certain events will have on us.
2) Most of us tend to have a basic level of happiness which we revert to eventually.
3) People generally err in imagining what will make them happy.
4) People tend to find ways of rationalizing unhappy outcomes so as to make them more acceptable to themselves.
5) People tend to repeat the same errors in imagining what will make them happy.
6) Events and outcomes which we dread may when they come about turn into new opportunities for happiness.
7) Many of the most productive and creative people are those who are continually unhappy with the world – and thus strive to change it.
8) Happiness is rarely as good as we imagine it to be, and rarely lasts as long as we think it will. The same mistaken expectations apply to unhappiness.
I’ve come across these points in the past, but lately I notice how true they are. Losing my job is not (yet) as bad as I thought it would be; it provides new opportunites. Human beings have hope, and if the worst happens, your sense of self-preservation will kick in. Some people will always be happy, and some people will never be happy. The easiest way to change your level of happiness is to change your attitude before your circumstances. Finally, there’s no need for me to be so scared about things in life and the choices I make.
Bush has a 31 percent approval rating in two polls. Do I hear 20s?
This video spoof made by Hillary Clinton is surprisingly funny, and yet she’s so cringeworthingly not a good actor.
That’s all the odds and ends for now.
Well, I for one wish you luck, Jeff!
And re ‘Parsifal’: there is an anecdote going around about a man who sat through a Wagner opera in the 1930’s and, when he came out, asked: ‘Is Roosevelt still President?’
As I find these points entail an inconsistant understanding of happiness, I would argue that rather you read “Happiness is a Serious Problem” by Dennis Prager, a leading Jewish lecturer who mostly has discussed morality and religion in his career. Go to his website which I’m linked to if you’re interested.
From reading this book, I’ve come to the understanding that happiness is one of the most important things to have in life, and that we should try to form our lives to become happy but only as a byproduct, not as a goal in itself.
Point #8 in your book confuses happiness with what people think is happiness, which is really pleasure. We rarely think of happiness as the byproduct of serious introspection and philosophy, but it is, and society’s pleasure-seeking tendencies have become an obstruction to happiness.
To point #7, remember that the worst people in the world have always been unhappy, and all of the good people in the world are happy, whether they make contributions or not. In order to think of others, one must first be happy in one’s own life.
To point #1, we have to work at happiness, it does not come naturally any more than does playing a violin. It is more a talent than a natural function. In fact, our nature is pitted against happiness, not simply our environment. For example, it is in our nature, when looking at a ceiling with all but one tile in place to focus on the missing tile.