Incompleat Iconoclast » Happiness

Exercise #16: Annus Mirabilis

Edward F. Gumnick — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:58:40 +0000

I always said I would make the perfect lottery winner. I would not be one of those assholes who win $37 million and manage to blow through it in two years, then end up on food stamps or something. No, I had a plan. If I ever won the lottery, I would invest the money. I would put some into mutual funds and some into safe stocks, and a little bit into the stocks that are too risky for my retirement fund, but that I’ve always thought about gambling on. And I would set some goals for growth and income. Whatever I managed to earn on my investments, some percentage of it would be reinvested, and I would only draw on the excess income for spending money. And if that meant I had to keep working, I would keep working, but at least I wouldn’t end up broke, and I’d have plenty to live on in my retirement.

There was something else I’d read about lottery winners, too, that used to run through my head when I stood in line at the convenience store to buy my tickets every Friday. Somebody did a study that showed that lottery winners aren’t any happier, on average, than anyone else as soon as six months after they win the jackpot. In fact, they even compared lottery winners to people who’d been in terrible accidents and were left partially paralyzed, and lottery winners weren’t any happier than those poor suckers. I guess the more striking fact there is that the paraplegics aren’t any less happy than the general public by the time six months have gone by. People can get used to anything. They can get used to having nothing, and they can get used to having everything. And I guess you’re as happy as you decide to make yourself.

So I always said that if I won the lottery, I would find a way to make myself happy, and I would find a way to keep myself happy. And I started thinking about something else I’d read: that happy and successful people tend to surround themselves with other happy and successful people. And I used to interpret that as meaning that if you’re not lucky enough to be surrounded by happy and successful people, you’re pretty much screwed. But I think there’s another way to look at it. Maybe it means that what you’re supposed to do is whatever you can to make the people around you happy and successful. If you can make some kind of difference in their lives, then they’ll have something extra to give when it comes time to make a difference in your life. I don’t know. I’m not an expert on this kind of thing.

And so I also tried to take that idea into consideration when I waited for the balls to pop up out of the machine and tell me that I’d become a millionaire. I decided I would take some of that money I make on my very sensible and well-planned investment strategy, and I would use it to help the people around me. I would pay the credit card that’s the only thing standing in the way of someone’s going back to school, and I’d also pay her tuition, at least until she’s had enough time to figure out if that’s what she wants to do. I’d pay off a couple of mortgages for people. I’d send one very exhausted guy on a vacation. I would help someone start a business.

Well, my plan didn’t count on how far the stock market could fall in six months, and I guess I figured on having more patience than I actually do have. So I had to start drawing on my principal if I wanted to make some people happy and successful. And then I got laid off from my job, so the next thing I knew, I was having to take living expenses out of that fund, too. I figured as long as I was out of work anyway, if I was going to send my friend on vacation, he might as well have company. Man, did we have a good time.

Note: The assignment was to write about an annus mirabilis—Latin for “wonderful year.”

Exercise #11: Favorite Thing to Do in Your Favorite City

Edward F. Gumnick — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:55:53 +0000

I’ve decided to return to the online workshop on which I was working when Hurricane Ike arrived last September. Had some trouble with the first prompt, though. My first attempt turned into unpublishable erotica. Here’s my second attempt:

Fragment #2

I want all of my life to be like these moments:

The day that Continental canceled our flight out of Rome, so we spent the day exploring Ostia. We surprised ourselves with how much fun we could cram into one unexpected extra day of vacation.
The day you led me through rush-hour traffic to Griffith Park, then showed me where the trail began. I was energized by your kindness.
The day the cold front blew through the city, and then you took me to your soccer practice. It was too cold for me to spend two hours waiting on a bench, so I wandered the unfamiliar neighborhood until I found a coffee shop open. Then I came back and climbed up and down the pedestrian staircase to to the road high on the hill above the soccer field to keep warm. While I walked the stairs, I had a heart-to-heart talk directed at a silent God. I told him that I thought he was irrelevant, and that I’d listened to his people and their bad ideas for long enough.

When Critical Thinking is its Own Reward

Edward F. Gumnick — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:12:11 +0000

Before I’d even finished yesterday’s blog entry, I did some googling on “happiest man Buddhist monk.” I’ll admit it: I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going too far out on a limb. I wanted to temper my language in case it turned out that there was compelling scientific evidence that scientists had identified the most joyful person alive. In other words, I wanted to cover my skeptical ass.

I wasn’t surprised to find out that the idea of “the happiest man in the world” hadn’t originated with Patty Gras. As near as I’ve been able to determine so far, that phrase originated in an article by Anthony Barnes in the January 21, 2007, issue of The Independent. The article talks about Matthieu Ricard, a French academic who left his job to become a Buddhist monk. Ricard was one of the subjects of some research done by Dr. Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Davidson’s team of researchers found that MRI scans of monks who’ve done a lot of meditation show indications of a higher level of “positive emotions” in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain—associated with happiness—than college students in the control group.

I took a look at the paper that the researchers published in 2004 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled “Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice.” It doesn’t contain the words happy, happiness, or happiest. I don’t have the expertise to understand all of the researchers’ conclusions, but I can say for sure that they don’t include the assertion that Matthieu Ricard is the happiest man in the world or, indeed, that Buddhist monks are habitually happy. It does seem to conclude that long-term meditators can induce mental states in themselves that are related in some way to positive emotions. This is interesting and thought-provoking scientific data that doesn’t need to be sensationalized by labeling anyone with the absurd title of “the most joyful person on the planet.”

But I’m glad that Patty Gras sent me that silly promo, because otherwise, I might not have looked into the UWM research or learned that Matthieu Ricard presented a talk at the TED Conference entitled “Habits of Happiness.” I’m looking forward to watching the video podcast. (I’m disappointed with the folks at TED for propagating the “happiest man in the world” label, though.)

I’m interested in the possible connection between meditation and positive emotions. I’d heard of this research, and I’ve been curious about where it might lead, but I’d never seen any presentation of the actual data until now. As I’ve mentioned before, I’d like to find a place where I can study or practice meditation with guidance from someone who teaches it from a scientific perspective, not a mystical one. If it hadn’t been for Patty’s careless e-mail—and my critical reaction to it—I might not have found these interesting new data points for my own research into so-called “enlightenment.”

Thanks, Patty! Keep the woowoo coming!

Boot Camp Day 10: Can I Get a Witness?

Edward F. Gumnick — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 05:54:07 +0000

I received an e-mail today from Patty Gras at KUHT (Houston PBS). She’s a producer and the host of a “health and lifestyle” show called Living Smart. The show features topics related to health, alternative medicine, diet, self-improvement, and so forth. Here’s what she has to say about an upcoming show:

“Did you know the happiest man on the planet is a Buddhist monk? Scientists checked his brain waves and found him to be the most joyful person on earth, so we decided to talk to another monk, Master Jian Xiao Shih, so he could share some of the secrets to happiness!

“Master Shih of the Chung Tai Zen center of Houston will share the art of happiness this Sunday at 3 p.m.”

Now, let me start off by saying that I like Patty Gras. She’s a talented singer—I used to enjoy going to hear her group Barandúa, which played music in a variety of Latin American folk styles, and I’ve also heard her perform with a group called Quartus and as part of a duo. She seems smart, cool, liberal, and keen on social-justice issues that I care about. But sometimes her show ventures too far into the area that I like to call “woowoo,” and the promo above is a prime example.

Let’s take a look at the claim she makes in this e-mail message. “The happiest man on the planet is a Buddhist monk.” Hm. Right off the bat, my hyperbole detector is registering dangerous readings. The happiest man in the world? By what measure? I want to ask. And then she’s right there with an explanation: “Scientists checked his brain waves and found him to be the most joyful person on earth.”

Wow. There’s a lot of information in that statement. If this is true, it’s big science news that hasn’t made it into any of the science blogs or magazines I’ve been reading. Have scientists really found a way to use brain waves to detect joy? Is happiness an emotion that can be measured by bioelectric activity? I am inclined toward skepticism, but I’m entirely willing to believe that this assertion is based on research about which I’ve never read. (I’ll get to googling at my earliest opportunity.)

But my skepticism rises to an irresistible level when I get to “…and found him to be the most joyful person on earth.” Even if I accept as a given that scientists have found a way to measure happiness, is she asking us to believe that they’ve found a way to measure brain waves remotely for everyone on the planet? I, for one, have not had my happiness brain waves measured yet. At least not that I know of.

Is this merely careless language? Or is it careless thinking? I almost hope it’s just a poor representation of an inexact understanding of some real findings of some real scientific research. But how can an intelligent person put forward an assertion that’s so ridiculous on its face? How much credulity can one successful professional broadcaster possess?

I worry, though, that there’s something worse going on here, which is a disturbing disregard for the very nature of science. Science is about evidence—about observation, experimentation, and the testing of hypotheses. And although I don’t mean to suggest that everyone should be expected to test and verify any claim that’s presented as having a scientific basis, I believe that intelligent people—especially intelligent people who make it their business to communicate with the public about important issues—have an obligation to apply a measure of skepticism to such claims. In other words, if you’re planning to go on television and say, “Scientists have proven this thing I’m telling you about,” then you have a responsibility to find out exactly what the scientists had to say, and then to present it to the public in a way that honestly represents the science involved.

In fact, let’s make it a rule. Why not? We have FCC regulations governing decency and obscenity, why shouldn’t we have one simple rule about scientific truth: If you make a claim on television or the radio and you invoke the name of science, you should be required by law to cite your sources and provide an honest statement of what the research proves.

And if it turns out that there’s no real science behind the claims, then journalists with integrity have a responsibility to present that information, too. Or come clean and say, “I just like the idea that this Buddhist monk is the happiest person on the planet.”

Note: I decided to totally disregard the suggested topics for my tenth and last Boot Camp submission.