Happiness and Eternity

Podcasts: Rationally Speaking, Radiolab, Tapestry, On Being

What a week! I'm glad I finally started this blog because my aural sponge soaked up several outstanding podcasts over the last few days. Even more striking were some confluences where different podcasts touched on similar ideas from completely different perspectives.

Rationally Speaking: The Science and Philosophy of Happiness

Hosts: Massimo Pigliucci and Julia Galef

http://www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/

(no separate link for each episode - look for RS37)

Rationally Speaking is produced by the New York City Skeptics organization and hosted by Massimo Pigliucci and Julia Galef (see http://www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/about/ for bios). Episode RS37 The Science and Philosophy of Happiness was released on June 16, 2011.

The first point that raised my ear brows is that the science of psychology has historically emphasized studying the nature, causes and treatment of mental disorders. Only recently (last twenty years or so) have psychologists devoted serious attention to what makes people psychologically healthy and happy. (And remember, in psychology experiments "people" means undergrad student volunteers.)

They also mentioned the controversial idea of happiness set points in which people tend to return to the same level of happiness regardless of how good or bad their life is. They gave the example of people who win the lottery or become paralyzed. Although there is usually a strong impact on happiness soon after the event, a year later most people report about the same degree of happiness they felt before.

The hosts mentioned studies which show certain groups of people are happier than others: "women tend to be happier, wealthier and healthier and more educated people tend to be happier; married people are happier; whites are happier; people who exercise and eat fruit are happier." (quoted from their blog http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/06/michael-hecht-rationally-speaking.html).

The last point made me wonder what it would be like to be a very unhappy person despite having all the characteristics of people who tend to be more happier than others. Say you are a rich, married, white woman with a Ph. D, jogging ten miles seven days a week, enjoying a fruit salad daily but chronically miserable. Bummer. Remember, studies report generalities and behind the numbers there are always some exceptions or outliers. Your mindset may vary.

Radiolab: Beyond Time (Brian Greene and others)

Hosts: Jad Abrumrad and Robert Krulwich

Guests: Brian Greene ( and others)

http://www.radiolab.org/2007/jul/24/

Another science podcast I enjoyed this week is a three year old episode of Radiolab from WNYC. John Ujda, Vice President of Marketing at Better World Books (http://www.betterworldbooks.com/) recently introduced me to this fabulous show hosted by Jad Abrumrad and Robert Krulwich. Their iTunes backlist is miles deep so after listening to the newer shows, I downloaded some old ones too.

The episode Beyond Time explored many aspects of the science and human experience of time. The tidbit that grabbed me was in their interview with well known physicist Brian Greene who explained that time may be an illusion. According to Greene, all moments in time still exist side by side, and it is our brains that organize time into what we perceive as a linear progression. Yow! Can I revise an answer on my SAT, please? More on this Tapestry of time concept in a moment.

Tapestry: The Spirituality of Music

Host: Mary Hynes

Guest: Victor Wooten

http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/episode/2011/06/19/the-spirit-of-music-2/

Not much later, I tuned into Tapestry (Canadian Broadcasting Company) for the show The Spirituality of Music. Mary Hynes, one of my favorite radio hosts, interviewed Victor Wooten about whom she said "Some people call Victor Wooten (http://www.victorwooten.com) the greatest bass player alive" (This made me feel somewhat baseless because I never heard of him, though my musical knowledge is woefully limited.) Wooten just published a book titled The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search For Growth Through Music.

About mid-way through this fabulous interview, Mary Hynes began a question by saying "There's a very intriguing idea in this book: All music ever played is still playing somehow."

Wow! Brian Greene, now I understand what you meant! If all time exists simultaneously then all music does too. Cool! (But does this include Barry Manilow songs? Uh oh.)

More dots connected: a bit earlier, Wooten responds to a question with this gem:

"If you were to sit someone down and say if you could wave a magic wand, and have whatever you wanted, what would you be doing this instant? And it's hard to find someone that would say I'd be sitting right here doing exactly what I'm doing. Most people long to be and be doing something entirely different."

Psychologists can study and explain the various parameters of happiness (and there is value in that), but on a personal level, if you would not bother waving a magic wand to change your life even if you could, then you are happy.

One more Wooten wisdom I'd like to share: while speaking about his efforts to become a better musician "Become as good as you can be, and as good as you can be changes every day, so I just want to keep growing."

I enjoyed this podcast so much I listened to it a second time, which I do rarely. And even then I realized that if I were a musician like Wooten, I would have appreciated his insights even more. If you are a musician, this is an audio hour you will really enjoy. 5 stars.

On Being: Investigating Healthy Minds with Richard Davidson

Host: Krista Tippett

Guest: Richard Davidson

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/healthy-minds/

Tapestry is my most recent discovery in the religion and spirituality category. On the other extreme, On Being (originally named Speaking of Faith) is a public radio program I have listened to for many years, even before I got into podcasts. Yes, I really used a radio.

Krista Tippett, the veteran host of On Being, has a long standing interest in spiritual implications of scientists and their work. She regularly interviews scientists and compiled several of these programs into her 2010 book Einstein's God.

Tippet's latest conversation with a scientist is the June 23, 2011 interview Investigating Healthy Minds with Neuroscientist Richard Davidson, a Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. Davidson is known for his studies of the brains of meditating Buddhist monks, sometimes called "Olympic meditators," and his work was sparked by discussions with the Dalai Lama.

The brain benefits of meditation are well known now; I've read about it and heard about it before. But Davidson made a crucial distinction that has been missing from previous discussions I've heard:

"Well, the idea here is simply that there are literally hundreds of different kinds of meditation practices. And so often in the West, we have this idea that meditation is one thing and that every kind of meditation will produce the same kinds of effects, and that's just simply not true. The contemplative traditions from which we draw have literally hundreds of different kinds of practices and they are designed for different kinds of people or for a person in different situations. They are understood within their own traditions to produce different effects and, biologically and behaviorally in the laboratory, they produce different effects. And it's kind of the way I often talk about it lay audiences is that the word meditation is kind of like the word sports. There are many different kinds of sports that can be performed. Some are more active, some are less active, some are performed in groups, some not. The same is true of meditation." (quotes from the transcript on the On Being website)

Davidson provided another interesting perspective on happiness:

"I think that most people still don't think of qualities like happiness as being a skill rather than it's typically conceptualized as a fixed trait and some people have more of it; some people have less of it. But if you think about it more as a skill, then it's something that can be enhanced through training. Fundamentally, I think that the kind of mental exercise that we're talking about is no different than physical exercise. People understand that they can't just do two weeks of physical exercise and then expect the benefits to remain for the rest of their lives. And the same thing with mental exercise."

One last kudos: On Being has one of the richest websites for any radio program or podcast I'm familiar with. The audio you hear is just one element surrounded by a halo of supplemental materials including extended interviews, transcripts, blogs, and related links. For example, the page for this show has meditation exercises anyone can try. It's well worth the time if you care to explore.

Thanks for reading.