Happy

A happiness guru (Dr Martin Seligman) recently visited our shores and posited that there are three types of happy lives; the hedonic life – for whom the poster child is, say, Paris Hilton; the engaged life – in which one is fully engrossed in an activity, think Mozart or Tiger Woods; and the meaningful life, personified by someone like Mother Teresa.

I think the good guru is short-changing us. Why limit yourself to only one type of happy life? Why not go for all three? If you could achieve it you could party like Paris, make as much money as Tiger and end up dying as a saint. Of course, if you got it wrong you could end up partying like Mother Teresa, playing golf like Mozart and engaged to Paris.

What is happiness all about anyway? In the interests of research, I decided to test Dr Seligman’s theories. As this would be a rigorous scientific examination and not some lightweight blog post, I decided to devote one whole hour to pursuing each of the happy life types.

Hour One: Hedonism. The obvious place to start an hour of Parisian debauchery is at the fridge. One cold beer and I think I could feel the beginnings of happiness. Or at least something that felt vaguely similar to happiness. A cold sausage and an hour of channel surfing later and I was certainly no unhappier than when I started. It did strike me, however, that the downside of hedonism is the lost feeling you get when you can’t find the remote. Or the cold empty feeling you get staring into a cold empty fridge.

Hour Two: Engagement. I must admit I liked the sound of this one. Finding something so engrossing that one could live in the moment, in the existential zone as it were. But what was the right activity? I have played a lot of golf and I can remember occasions when my swing worked the way it is supposed to and the golf ball flew pretty much where I was aiming it and life was easy and good. However, the chance of that happening when required seemed very slim. The chance of capturing that feeling for the better part of a whole hour seemed positively anorexic. Learning to play the piano like Mozart in an hour also seemed remote. What else could I do? There had to be one creative activity that could fit the bill? The obvious one was life drawing. (For those of you who haven’t tried it, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Although you must be prepared to sketch naked people, some of them women.) Unfortunately, there wasn’t a class starting right then and my research budget did not stretch to two days. What creative pursuit could I pursue with nothing more than a computer and an active imagination? Hmmm … dunno.

Hour Three: Meaning. The first problem I struck was a definitional one. What is meant by meaning? I mean, what does meaning mean? This was a mean problem. Eenie, meanie, minie, mo. By now, the word had lost all meaning. But with a Buddha-like effort of concentration I managed to sit on the couch in a position approximating the lotus (apart from the crossed legs) and spent the rest of the hour meditating on the meaning of meaningful.

In conclusion, what would my PhD thesis say? One, hedonism is all very well but the only way to avoid a hangover is to stay drunk. This could explain why Paris, Britney and Lindsay are never seen driving a car sober.

Two, engagement is a ripper if you can find The Key to Your Bliss (there must be a book in that). It also helps if you can convince all those non-engaged types around you to lay off while you are drawing (and can they please take off their clothes occasionally in the interests of art and happiness).

Three, and this is the feel-good bottom line, I suspect that old Dr Happy-Pants Seligman thinks that true, award winning, book-tour quality happiness is only found through the pursuit of a meaningful life. I mean, that’s the obvious answer isn’t it? No-one is going to call Mother Teresa an idiot. And all the major religions pretty much bang on about nothing else. However, for me, that is enough of a reason to give it a wide berth. After all, most religions also tell anyone who will listen that the only true happiness is found in the next life. That’s one research project that can wait for another day.

Dummy spitting

We’ve all seen those guidebooks with titles like “Computers for Dummies”. It got me thinking, what if one of the books was about mannequins? Would it be called “Dummies for Dummies”? What if you were looking for a book on, say, crash test dummies or pacifiers? To avoid any confusion, a seasoned self-helper would seek out a guidebook. It would be called, obviously, ”An Idiots Guide to Dummies for Dummies”.

Some of these guide books are on pretty technical stuff, like car maintenance and brain surgery. But would you want your car serviced by a guy holding a copy of “An Idiot’s Guide to Brain Surgery”? Come to think of it, what would an idiot be doing servicing cars? All the really smart idiots know that the big money is to be made in the building trades.

And, intelligent reader, how does an idiot know that there are guidebooks out there written specifically for idiots? I mean, anyone smart enough to know that is probably not an idiot. So who are these books aimed at? The sad answer is you and me, and I’m not so sure about you.

I have to take my propeller hat off to the marketers. What a coup to convince people that they should buy books that (a) acknowledge that the buyer is either an idiot or a dummy, and (b) advertise it to the world in giant letters on the front cover. It’s like walking around in a t-shirt saying “I’m Stupid And I’ve Got The T-shirt To Prove It”. Personally, if I’m reading an instruction book on the bus, I’d want the title to say something slightly more flattering, like “An Advanced Guide To Hydro-Domestic Engineering”, not “Changing Washers for Dummies”.

And just what is the technical difference between an idiot and a dummy? Are the books for dummies slightly harder to understand that the ones for idiots? Is a dummy an idiot who has read all the manuals? Or is an idiot someone who doesn’t know he’s a dummy? What if you worked in a bookshop and someone, say a moron, came into the shop and wanted advice on whether to buy an idiot’s guide or a book for dummies? Do you insult him by implying he is an idiot, or is that a compliment to a moron? Some of these morons are no dummies. I propose a guidebook answering all these questions entitled, naturally, “An Idiot’s Guide to Dummies (subtitled “Idiots for Dummies”)”. Now that would be useful. Other essential titles that regrettably will probably never see the light of day include: “Selling the Dummy for Dummies”, “Spitting the Dummy for Dummies”, and, my personal favourite, “Ventriloquism for Dummies”.

These books are, of course, more evidence of creeping Americanization (an apt and annoying example of which is my PC’s reluctance to spell Americanization with an “s”.) The theory seems to be that one’s education, and by implication one’s ignorance, is something to be shouted about.

Finally, it’s confession time. In my bookshelf is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Screenwriting”. It’s actually well written and a handy guide. But somehow I just can’t imagine being interrupted reading it in a café and offered a writing job. No-one is that stupid.