a New Year’s reflection on happiness

Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.

–John Stuart Mill

For some more specific thoughts on happiness, in this season we have dedicated to it, see an op-ed, “In Pursuit of Unhappiness,” by Darrin M. McMahon, a professor of history at Florida State and author of the forthcoming Happiness: A History, in today’s New York Times.

Wishing a productive and prosperous new year to all,
M.

panic, the body, and the mind

Posted by mf on the original home for this blog:

I’ve never had [a panic attack], though i know of one time where i was badly overcome by a situation and needed to get away from where I was (in a lecture) – interestingly, that was what prompted me to go back to my martial arts training (which I’d stopped for a few years) and I’ve never looked back since.

Confidence, regular training and learning about your body does wonders.

Thanks, M! You’ve touched on an area I’ve been ignoring here, probably because I’ve been ignoring it (or at least giving it short shrift) in my life for too long (about a year).

You’re absolutely right about how paying attention to, taking care of and challenging the body can clear away a lot of the mental debris. That’s one more thing I need to build back into my life, and I know I’ll be glad when I’ve done it, for the many payoffs.

By the way, this is something that was sort of stolen from me in childhood. I was a bookish kid, and for whatever reason I really didn’t get swept up in neighborhood pickup games of whatever sport. So I never learned a lot of common athletic skills, and to this day I swear I never had a physical education “teacher” (through secondary school) who actually took responsibility for teaching me any of those skills. It was all about running drills, or learning to play on the fly from my contemptuous (or at best condescending) classmates; in high school, half-subliminal gender policing was the only addition to the “curriculum”.

So I’ve been pleased at being able to reclaim physical training as a curative and as a joy in myself. And to all those lazy “teachers” who ignored my training back in the day: Eat my jockstrap!

B^p ,
M.

a personal note to friends (in the context of the previous two posts)

I’m still working on the balance between personal and more general focus here, but feel obliged to insert a brief note to friends.

Am I suicidal? No. Have I ever been? No, not really. I’m not a teenager. I can imagine a satisfactory and even rewarding life in which I don’t live up to my own expectations or those of others. In fact, that has mostly been the story of my life since I was a teenager.

Do I understand “struggle[s] with an almost paralyzing inability to get [one]self started on projects”? Yes. They are the chief conflict of my life today. Do I “stave off anxiety and feelings of failure by escaping into fantasy”? Me voilà. I live here.

edit 2007-10-02: “Here” in the last sentence refers to the online community where this was originally posted, which was at the time of writing a vivid illustration of my Internet addiction.