The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin is the sort of light reading that you'll find in popular, daily blogs. It fits into the gimmicky genera of "The Year of... books" (the year of eating locally, the year of living Biblically, the year of cooking Julia Child recipes, etc...). Rubin's year consisted in making a "project" of being happier. Rubin chose this project on the belief that being happy is often thought to be the most important goal in life and while she felt she already was happy, becoming happier would not be a bad goal.
Her project divided into committing herself to twelve resolutions, one of which she concentrated on each month of the year. Actually, her twelfth resolution was to fulfill all her previous eleven resolution at once. My initial reaction to the project was somewhat negative: turning being happy into a project seemed rather artificial to me, but there were enough thoughtful passages early in the book to make me think that the book would eventually offer something worthwhile. Furthermore, Rubin anticipated nearly every facile criticism of the book that crossed my mind. She dispensed with them in a rather charming and disarming way, writing something along lines of, "O.K., but if I'm going to be happy, I've got to be myself, so I'm going to do this anyway." Fair enough.
The most serious objection to her work is the superficiality of her concept of happiness. Despite claiming to have read Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and the Dalai Lama (or some other treatment(s) of Buddhism), her notion of happiness is by and large the temporary psychological state that has its epitome in euphoria. Contrast this with, in particular, Aristotle's concept of happiness (or eudaimonia) which goes well beyond euphoria to involve living a good life. If Rubin truly wants to follow the path recommended by philosophers through the ages, then the happiness that she ought to seek should reach beyond her first-person perceptions of her own emotional state. Certainly, pleasant experiences are likely to be a component of happiness, or a good life, but Rubin seems to think that the highest good is built on these experiences. To be fair, she occasionally recognizes that happiness contains components that are other than euphoria, but the bulk of her book is a compendium of tips on on boosting one's mood. One wonders if Prozac, Paxil, or Ecstacy might be an easier and more effective approach.
Despite this criticism, her mood-enhancing tips are frequently worthwhile and given the success of her blog, they appear to resonate with many blog-readers; some of whom claim to be following her explicit advice and engaging in "happiness projects" of their own. One should not diminish the importance of maintaining a happy state of mind nor deny that it can be cultivated. Rubin reports that her project was successful, and if it leads others to enhance their own happiness, it is all to the good. The danger is that it will feed narcissistic and ego-centric tendencies that are a significant obstacle to the general happiness.
Showing posts with label Self-Help. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self-Help. Show all posts
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction / P.M. Forni -- N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 2011
A number of books have been published recently that warn of possible damaging effects of the internet and other digital communication technologies. Among them are Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget, Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, and John Miedema's Slow Reading. Lanier warns that social media are turning us into willing tools of database developers, coarsening our personalities, and diverting us from exploring the rich, multi-dimensional and nuanced life of the real world of people and tangible things. Nicholas Carr warns that the internet is a massive distraction machine that is shortening our attention spans and possibly changing the structure of our brains making us less able to engage in deep thought. Medeima exhalts the pleasures of combating these tendencies through the practice of reading extended, artfully written texts, slowly and deliberately.
P.M. Forni's new book The Thinking Life fits into this new and developing genera. It is less analytical and more practical than the others. While a good, practical guide would be of value, Forni's book too often lapses into the realm of the trite self-help book, making it of limited use to any reasonably thoughtful adult, i.e., someone thoughtful enough to read a book about thinking. It might, however, offer valuable lessons to an adolescent who over-values the ready information and profusion of content available on the internet.
In the early chapters, Forni describes two elements that are essential to serious thought: time and attention. He rightly observes that both are threatened by our contemporary fixation on the inconsequential trivia that is communicated via the internet and cell phone communication. He then describes two important forms of thought: reflection and introspection, the bane of which is distraction.
Following these chapters, the work begins to read more like an extended monologue in Hamlet by Polonius to his son Laertes. The advice Forni offers is largely commonplace and uncontroversial: how to be a good student, employee, or manager. There are, however, usually valuable kernels embedded within the advice. For example, Forni rightly observes (quoting the Buddha) that "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." However, his elaboration of this truth becomes little more than a rehash of the power of positive thinking. Elsewhere, he rightly recognizes the importance of cultivating self-control. This is followed by his trademark bulleted list of recommendations. The work becomes of a piece with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Win Friends and Influence People, both of which he cites favorably.
The superficiality of the work cannot, however, vitiate its core idea: deep, serious thought has significant benefits: it is intrinsically pleasurable, conducive to good decision making, and essential to a truly happy life in the Aristotelian sense. Furthermore, our ability to engage in deep, serious thought is being challenged by the explosion of the seductive, on line trivia that increasingly intrudes on our time.
P.M. Forni's new book The Thinking Life fits into this new and developing genera. It is less analytical and more practical than the others. While a good, practical guide would be of value, Forni's book too often lapses into the realm of the trite self-help book, making it of limited use to any reasonably thoughtful adult, i.e., someone thoughtful enough to read a book about thinking. It might, however, offer valuable lessons to an adolescent who over-values the ready information and profusion of content available on the internet.
In the early chapters, Forni describes two elements that are essential to serious thought: time and attention. He rightly observes that both are threatened by our contemporary fixation on the inconsequential trivia that is communicated via the internet and cell phone communication. He then describes two important forms of thought: reflection and introspection, the bane of which is distraction.
Following these chapters, the work begins to read more like an extended monologue in Hamlet by Polonius to his son Laertes. The advice Forni offers is largely commonplace and uncontroversial: how to be a good student, employee, or manager. There are, however, usually valuable kernels embedded within the advice. For example, Forni rightly observes (quoting the Buddha) that "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." However, his elaboration of this truth becomes little more than a rehash of the power of positive thinking. Elsewhere, he rightly recognizes the importance of cultivating self-control. This is followed by his trademark bulleted list of recommendations. The work becomes of a piece with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Win Friends and Influence People, both of which he cites favorably.
The superficiality of the work cannot, however, vitiate its core idea: deep, serious thought has significant benefits: it is intrinsically pleasurable, conducive to good decision making, and essential to a truly happy life in the Aristotelian sense. Furthermore, our ability to engage in deep, serious thought is being challenged by the explosion of the seductive, on line trivia that increasingly intrudes on our time.
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