by Joanna on August 13, 2009
A friend of mine sent me a link to this video:
After investigation (ok! clicking on the link), I found out that this video is part of a project on happiness: Happiness seekers. It’s a documentary on happiness. You can watch a serie of interviews HERE.
I wanted to check if the project was not a religious or political propaganda so I investigated further more (ok! I googled) and found out that there were several documentaries on the subject in the doing. For example, The H-factor explores happiness through the eyes of Kayla, a nine year old girl.
An other project with no date or video has an interesting list of interviewees.
I am looking forward to the release of all those documentaries☺
Follow the link if you can’t access the video : HOME
Today I went to the library to buy a book and I came back with five!
I went by the personal development section and discovered loads of books about happiness. It surprised me because I never realized there was so much literature on happiness.
You have to know that here, in France, people can be very cynical about happiness. Happiness is for fools or it’s a sect’s slogan. When you surf the web, most of the people writing, talking about happiness are Australian or American (it seems)(well I don’t speak Tamoul or Chinese).
But lately my beliefs are shaken. Everywhere I go, the topic comes up. Just this week, I was helping a friend at a festival and happiness was on everybody’s lips at conferences. Then a couple of days later, I was at a red light on my bike, and just there was a friend eating at a terrasse. I joined him for half an hour, only to discover that he was organizing happiness diners. They invite specialists on the subject like Ruut Veenhoven director of the World Database of Happiness and editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies and discuss.
I was in shock. A happiness tribe!
Since there is prolific information on the web about happiness (see my blogroll for exemple), I could contribute better by investigating what French have to bring to the table. I have a few people in mind and I hope that even if France is the world champion antidepressant consumer, it has the capacity to produce great happiness thinkers. To be continued…
In the meantime, he is not talking directly about happiness but he is French and I see an evident link between how we treat our planet and the fundamentals of happiness. As I exposed in a former post, when you start to investigate the subject of happiness, more stuff (when basics needs are met) is not doing the trick. Happiness doesn’t lie in having more, wasting, war, exploitation… Once every man will discover his inner happiness, the need to destroy our environment will not be the logics anymore. Well that’s what I believe but It seems I am an utopist ☺
So don’t miss this sublime movie that has been released for free in several languages for us to team up and improve the life of each one of us.
by Joanna on February 12, 2009
Happy go lucky
Directed by Mike Leigh. With Sally Hawkins, Elliot Cowan, Alexis Zegerman.
The simple story of Poppy, a light hearted 30 year old woman who is insightful and foolish at the same time. Happy Go lucky is really a movie talking about happiness.
You might find it a bit sugary at first.
“Ok, she is happy we get it.”
“Oh and she is funny and empathic. Yeah riiight!”
“This girl is bugging me with her smiley face and all.”
But you might also find it comforting.
“That’s the way to live it”
“Is it based on a real person? Can I meet her?”
Simple lines but strong understanding:
“This is nice”
“Isn’t it just?”
