Lives on Earth

happiness

  • “There’s No Natural Selection For Happiness”

    “Like evolution, history disregards the happiness of individual organisms” (243) writes Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harari takes us through early human history to note its indifference to personal well-being and its drive toward population growth—two… Continue reading

  • The Limits of Happiness

    If our expectations of happiness sometimes fall short. it may be because we often misunderstnad the nature of emotions in general. We tend to think that emotions come in pairs, that each pleasant emotion has its distressing counterpart, that happiness… Continue reading

  • Hindus Seek Detachment. Have Plants and Animals Already Found It?

    Here in suburbia, next to a glassy corporate office, sits a Hindu temple, its ornate façade surrounded by parking lots. Curious, I pulled in one day, removed my shoes at the temple door and walked into a large open space.… Continue reading

  • “Comparison Is the Thief of Happiness”

    “Comparison is the thief of all happiness,” says former NFL star Joe Ehrmann in denouncing the pressures on boys to “be a man,” in the documentary The Mask You Live In.* Messages overt and covert, from video games, fathers and… Continue reading

  • Walking Up the Ramp

    Life is a ramp. We—all things alive—are walking along ramps that slope upwards at various angles, angles that change during our lifetimes. The climb may be easy or arduous. The ramp begins at birth and ends at death. The angle… Continue reading

  • Steven Pinker on Disgust, Sex, and Happiness

    Hearts and brains. Mind and body. We are quite sure that our thoughts take place in our heads. But what about our emotions? Sometimes we locate them in our hearts, sometimes vaguely in our bodies. But Stephen Pinker in his… Continue reading