For when there's exploring-time online, I'd recommend TED: Ideas worth spreading (which reminds me, FORA changed their tag from FORA: The world is thinking (=good) to FORA: Feed your inner genius (=kinda self-absorbed)).
Anyhoo, my point was TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It explains itself as 'riveting talks by remarkable people', and it covers the usual gamut from tech to green issues - Al Gore to Jane Goodall, Bill Gates to Philippe Starck - but the interface is organised by themes: How We Learn, Master Storytellers, Not Business As Usual - each theme groups together talks from across genres. I was meandering through the 'Words about Words' section, which included Steven Pinker on language and thought, Evan Williams on how twitter developed from a sideline, and Isabel Allende on tales of passion.
Through one tangent or another I stumbled upon the delightful Matthieu Ricard, who (did his PhD in cell genetics under a Nobel Laureate at the Institut Pasteur and) ended up as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Nepal. These days he's all that and more: author, photographer, great humanitarian, the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama...
Ricard is into being happy, but he's also interested in why and how we experience happiness: he approaches happiness as a skill that can be developed habitually, rather than as a fleeting, conditional emotion: "this is not just a luxury. This is not a supplementary vitamin for the soul; this is something that's going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives. We are ready to spend 15 years achieving education. We love to do jogging, fitness. We do all kinds of things to remain beautiful. Yet we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most: the way our mind functions."
Very interesting.
:-)
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2 comments:
Not to your point I know, but reading the blog this morning reminded me of that line in Tender Mercies where Robert Duvall's character says "I don't trust happiness"....I guess the challenge is not only to find happiness but to allow ourselves to trust in it and savour it when we can.
Awww... that's a lovely thought. I sometimes think stress & unhappiness have that great rollercoaster momentum going for them - it's easy for that rush to become the norm.
'Savour' is such an appropriate word - implies awareness, mindful appreciation & pleasure - just perfect!
Off to savour me some happiness :-)
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