Some years ago, because it was assigned to colleagues and me, I read Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. I didn't do as much reading as I did skimming and skipping, groaning impatiently all the way. For me, the book was a slog. (Even the subtitle makes my teeth grind.) Despite what many others (some of whom I respect) said about the book, I found it . . . well . . . unhappy-making.
II
Yesterday, a friend recommended an even more unhappy-making article with downright dangerous observations from The Atlantic: "What Would You Pay to Be Happy?" My answer is Nothing. Happiness surely isn't something one can buy. That said, I am leaning toward accepting the research that indicates beyond a certain level of income ($75,000, a figure that seems impossibly high to me), one achieves no significant increase in happiness with an increase of funds. (From my vantage point, I can say unequivocally that money can buy a level of ease, if not happiness, in securing necessities.) A Buddhist friend succinctly captured my view of this article: "ho-hum. if anyone's interested, the Buddha's teaching still seems to focus on a stable refuge of well-being that isn't dependent on external conditions. so, not so much of a monetizable app for anyone's phone. as Ursula Le Guin says, so much for capitalism."
III
I'm more a member of the Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi school of happiness. Flow, "joy, creativity, the process of total involvement in life" is happiness. He writes, "It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly." In the state of total involvement or surrender to the creative, a sense of presence outside of time blossoms: that is flow.
IV
Walking with a camera is flow.
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