The search for true happiness goes on (1)
Some time ago, I helped develop a happiness rating scale for children (22 January, p 38). This involved asking a large reference group of children and teenagers to rate various statements according to how happy they thought someone agreeing with that statement would be. We picked the statements with the highest levels of rated agreement to form our final scale.
What we found was something of a eureka moment. Our reference group was far more agreed on which statements indicated minimum happiness, but there was very little agreement at all on what indicated happiness. It looks as if humans are better at measuring unhappiness than happiness.
From your article’s evidence that happiness relies heavily on the absence of certain factors (such as inequality), and the collective wisdom of that young reference group, perhaps we should measure unhappiness, as it seems a more valid concept 鈥� and define true happiness as its absence.
The search for true happiness goes on (3)
When I was a teenager, if anybody asked me, “Are you happy?”, I immediately started thinking of reasons why I wasn’t. The same happened if I asked myself the question. I decided that happiness is the normal state of an active animal; if I got on with what I was doing, the question didn’t arise. I have now been trying for 60 years to live in the present, and I can say I have had a happy life.
The search for true happiness goes on (1)
David Robson’s excellent review of studies of happiness confirmed that it involves multiple factors. Perhaps the most important is being content with what we have, while continuing to learn. The second is realism, as summarised in the plea:”Give me the strength to change the things I cannot accept; the patience to accept the things I cannot change; and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Happiness, as opposed to gratification, isn’t gained by obtaining material things.
The search for true happiness goes on (4)
A seeker of truth is asked by a prophet what he desires most. To be happy is the reply. Surely, says the prophet, you wouldn’t want to be happy when your parents or a child dies?
Likewise, how can we be happy when we know that the world we love is dying in front of us? There will be time for true happiness when humans and nature walk hand in hand again.
If only sign language were universal the world over
How great that hearing people are learning sign language (15 January, p 27). How sad that the signs aren’t the same all over the world. If legend is correct, the early peoples of the Americas had thousands of different languages and dialects, but all understood the same sign language. What an aid to communication.
Could phage-like therapy tackle fungal infections?
Your update on the growing use in Belgium of bacteriophage viruses to treat intractable bacterial infections made me wonder if there are equivalent viruses that could be used against fungal infections (29 January, p 20). These are often hard to treat because we are more closely related to fungi than we are to bacteria, so what kills fungi usually isn’t good for us either. Viruses that target specific fungi could be ideal treatments for these infections.
On the clitoris, dolphins and masturbation
Patricia Brennan is, of course, right in saying the clitoris isn’t just a mini penis (15 January, p 16). Indeed, in hyenas, both organs are the same size 鈥� real sexual equality. But we need to understand that orgasms aren’t just a reward system to encourage copulation. In some mammals, the female climax is just as important as the male one, since it triggers ovulation. Humans are unusual in this regard.
Brennan also mentions dolphin masturbation. There are many reports of wild and captive dolphins finding that humans are very useful for this purpose and for soliciting favours. So when you see those Graeco-Roman images of someone riding on a dolphin, it may just be a reward for services performed!
Thinking about it, food studies seem a little thin
Perhaps I had too much quarantine time on my hands, but I tracked down every paper cited in your article on how to change the way we think about food (1 January, p 36). The median sample size of the 20 studies cited by the author is a paltry 51, and the largest had only 107 participants. Of the 13 studies that stated the mean age of participants, the median of these means was only 20.5 years. Fifteen of the 20 studies recruited exclusively university students in North America or Western Europe.
Underpowered studies on homogenous samples are notorious for producing false positives, often very eye-catching ones, which tend to be published.
Time to bring the lone jaguar in from the cold?
Your article about the loss of cat-like animals in the US for millions of years was sad, but particularly so for the one poor US jaguar roaming alone somewhere in Arizona and searching for a non-existent mate (15 January, p 42).
Why doesn’t the US agency responsible for threatened wildlife find and capture the poor animal and deposit him in an appropriate jungle region of Mexico where jaguars still live?
Air pollution death toll hides a bigger number
I often read that outdoor air pollution causes 4 million deaths a year, including in your wider look at the impact of chemicals on us (29 January, p 44).
However, air pollution is estimated to reduce the life expectancy of a much larger number of people by months or, in more polluted locations, years. All these add up to an equivalent of 4 million whole-term lives lost; the key word here is equivalent. It is important that this is made clear, if only to emphasise that air pollution can have potentially serious health impacts on anyone exposed to it, not just an imaginary 4 million people.