What is happiness?

That is not a rhetorical question. A year ago I wrote about being part of a mass happiness experience (watching a circus act). A few days ago I got to experience vicarious bliss at the Impressionist exhibition at Te Papa. As well as making me intensely happy, it made me think about the nature of happiness again. I wonder if there is a pattern here somewhere?

I did realise, in a moment of clarity, through the blissed out peace, love and nature, totally non-chemically-induced fog, that Maslow would have described it as a peak state. The thing is though,  I didn’t do the painting.

It wasn’t even just that I was looking at pretty pictures. In fact, the paintings were nowhere near as pretty as they look in pictures. From a distance they look like their familiar reproductions. Mothers and children in a garden, haystacks, a valley, the sea. Up close, they are living brushstrokes of wild colours, not realistic but more real to the mind than a photo. More real because they express the experience of the artist as he painted that place in that moment ( of course, it wasn’t the experience of one moment in time,  Monet just waited for a similar moment to recur so he could continue work on the painting). I guess that does explain why the paintings seem so real, it was the reality of the painter’s experience,  not external  reality.

Hmm, maybe it is that I was experiencing the painter’s creativity in the same way we shared the acrobats freedom from gravity. Maybe, even though I have never created wonderful paintings,  I have experienced the same joy in nature as Monet so his experience can also be mine,  and his peak state can be mine too.  I understand a little better now why some people spend fortunes on art.

I could have stayed at the exhibition forever but i knew I didn’t need to. I have seen the shadows passing over the hills and the light on the valley and it makes me happy that Monet thought it important that others saw it too.

Altruism

It’s been a while since I wrote anything…a whole year in fact. My last post was about the importance of happiness and this is going to be about altruism. Pretty optimistic eh? You may not like the next one though because it will be about the joys of frugality.

What confuses me about altruism is that it is supposedly doing something good for no personal gain. It is not doing something good because you have to, or because you think you should, or because it will make you look good, but just because it is good. The difficulty for me is that altruism feels good, or to quote Sus, it is “happiness-making”. How can doing something that makes me happy be counted as doing it for no personal gain?

On the other hand, if doing good feels bad it is martyrdom and that should  never be confused with altruism. Altrusim is giving with a glad heart. It is not grudging or resentful. As soon as you begin to resent giving, please stop.

Another conflict I have regarding the whole business of altruism is that even after the buzz of knowing that I have made the world a little bit better for someone else, and therefore for the world in general, I start to find that I am getting all kinds of other benefits. I don’t go into the altruism business to get personal benefit but it just happens. Do these unintended gains disqualify my altruism?

An example. I have been helping a former student of mine with academic writing. About 4 times a year she contacts me for assistance to understand the requirements of her assignments and to plan her preparation. Then, a week or so later, she talks her essay through as she writes it. Why is this process necessary? She is dyslexic. The work is intensive and exhausting, especially since we both have demanding  jobs but I have gotten to learn so much from the experience.

I have learnt about what it is like for a very competent and ambitious young person to have to struggle with academic tasks..something that  frustrated her all though school and I didn’t notice because of all the behaviours that had gotten her thrown out of numerous English classes. Of course I have read about dyslexia but there is no way I could have gained as much understanding as I have through donating the occasional weekend morning.

I have also learnt about her world of Early Childhood teaching and thought about things like how competencies and dispositions that are being developed  in young children are also relevant to the teenagers I work with. Talking about learning intentions and success criteria , or principles of language teaching, in a completely different context really challenges my brain and gives me a deeper understanding of my own work.

Of course I also get the usual altruistic buzz, knowing that I make a difference, that my student has the chance of a successful career, knowing that she will make a difference to countless children because she is an excellent, caring teacher. My egotism tells me that the world is a better place because I am in it, because I do what I do.

This altruism game sounds rather selfish but anyone can play. The best thing about altruism is that it is free!

The importance of happiness

A few days ago I watched a circus act. Not the bigtop, animal variety but an acrobatic busker show with ropes and a trapeze. I enjoyed it and it made me think and those two things go so well together.

I enjoyed it because it made me feel good. In my mind I was flying and tumbling and stretching and performing amazing gravity-defying feats. I am sure that lots of other people were feeling something similar because we were oohing and aahhing and gasping and cheering in unison. We weren’t conciously thinking about responding, we just were. We were feeling what we were seeing. I don’t know what other people were feeling but my body felt wonderful and I walked away feeling light and free.

I felt happy and part of a spontaneous community of happiness. I don’t know how long that experience lasted for other people, or how intensely other people experienced it, but I do know it was a good thing. I also know that lots of little good things add up and that happiness can be built by fostering happy experiences.

Our society could use a whole lot more happiness, especially communal happiness and there is absolutely no reason why we can’t make it a priority. As a teacher, I know that people learn better when they are happy (Maslow etc) but its crazy to justify the creation of a safe happy environment on the grounds that it will promote better academic results. Happiness is worthy in its own right. Learning, mental health, safe communities etc are way more likely to eventuate when happiness is valued but happiness comes first.