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A Question of Happiness
Posted on: 21 Apr, 2009 04:25 PM
I am reading a book called The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. Weiner is a self-described "grump" who travels the world in search of the happiest places on earth.
I am only 125 pages in, but I love this book. I love it because a search for happiness is a perfect entry into a study of cultures. Humans pursue what feels good, or at least comfortable. Looking at all the factors - everything from religion to history to natural resources to geography - to see what makes people feel okay tells us so much about the cultures in which we live.
Already, the author has traveled from the United States, where personal happiness is an obsession, to Switzerland, where happiness seems to involve a kind of calm contentedness, to Bhutan, a country which measures GHP ( "Gross National Happiness"), to Qatar, where his questions about happiness are seen as indulgent at best.
Here is an interesting aside about language. The English word "happiness" comes from the old Norse word "hap", or luck. When we have had a mishap, we have had a spell of bad luck. In modern German, the word "Gluck" means both "happiness" and "luck".
My favorite books remind me of the great expanse that is human existence. So many ways to live life and to interpret the lives we live.
Submitted by Erbyme on 09 Sep, 2009 11:16 AM
It's an interesting ideea to measure GHP.
Thanks for sharing !
Erbyme
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Submitted by Kirsten on 03 May, 2009 03:41 PM
Sounds like an interesting book! Thanks for sharing. I will see if I can find it here.
To find the different culture, to find how people live with the mother nature is also the main reason of why I majored in Geography and why I love traveling.
"Good luck" for me is simply "without bad luck" :-)
I think you will find it very interesting shelly. It is out in paperback here now.
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Submitted by Shelley on 22 Apr, 2009 01:47 AM
Sounds like an interesting book! Thanks for sharing. I will see if I can find it here.
To find the different culture, to find how people live with the mother nature is also the main reason of why I majored in Geography and why I love traveling.
"Good luck" for me is simply "without bad luck" :-)
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