The Happiness Project

So I've been reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and I think it's made me realize that I've been working on my own happiness project for about a year now. Maybe not as methodical, but perhaps just as effective.

Rubin tackles the task of making herself happier by outlining 12 topics to cover over the course of 1 year: marriage, parenthood, friends, eternity, attitude, work, play, passion, energy, money, and mindfulness. She took on one subject each month, adding to the resolutions from the previous month and leaving the 12th month of the year to juggle all 11 topics.

So far, I've read her first two months/chapters entitled "Boost Energy" and "Remember Love." The first in particular allowed me to notice changes I've made in my own life. I play DDR for an hour and a half on Saturdays and Sundays, half an hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and 45 minutes of Wii Fit on Tuesdays and Thursdays (I've lost 5 pounds this month, hopefully that's only the beginning). I make a list of chores to get done on weekends; even if I don't make it through all of them, I still feel accomplished. To clear clutter out of my apartment, I look for something to bring down to the dumpster or the recycling bins with me every morning (and it's gotten to the point where I literally hunt down emptied and useless items). I listen to songs that make me walk faster on my way to and from work. If I feel like singing or dancing to that music, I do (to varying degrees depending upon the presence of other people).

I've also worked a bit on the interpersonal side. I only say no to a social engagement if I'm double-booked, where previously I might hesitate due to the uncertainty of the outcomes. If my family or a friend calls, I call them back as soon as possible instead of waiting for them to check in again in a few weeks. I try to be an initiator and encourager instead of a responder and an agreer. I've stopped accommodating others at the cost of my own mental health - or at least, I don't do it without speaking up a little.

Now I'm following the book and thinking about what my resolutions would be each month. What would this month be? I think boosting energy is more than just physical for me, so it warrants two months of work. What I would call "Feeling Smarter" in a sense, keeping myself actively reflecting, learning, and creating. I've started playing one song on the keyboard every morning, watching one piece of media in Japanese with subtitles at least once a week, and hopefully keeping up with my blog more regularly. Once I have furniture in my apartment again, I'm hoping to get back into pastels on the weekends - I have five small frames I bought to fill with artwork weekly.

Anyway, more important than the details of such a plan is the engagement and determination to do it. I think there are very few people that wouldn't benefit from such an endeavor. Just something to ponder.

Possible Futures and My United Books of Academia

It's almost the end of March, and there's snow in the sky. I don't think I need to say anything else about that.

As I'm preparing to take off for GDC, I find myself gazing wide-eyed into the future - or trying to anyway. There are so many things for me to learn and so many people for me to meet in the days to come. But more importantly, there will be so many opportunities for the things I learn and the people I meet to boomerang around again and show up in my life in an impactful way. I'd like to hope so, at least.

Another thing that has me looking far ahead is The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half  the Twenty-First Century. It's a few years old, but I've been so tuned out of science since I graduated high school that it's fascinating me. The breadth of the essays contained within it also promises insight into a stunning array of specialized fields. Right now, I'm reading about how science has been able to transfer portions of the brain between species, and what consequences these types of transfers might have on humans. Bizarre stuff that one would only expect to see in fiction.

The reason I'm reading this is because I was inspired to look to the future by the post-literacy presenter at ACRL. While post-literacy served as a starting point for my research, I'm bouncing around quite a few ideas right now: nanobiology, transhumanism, the post-information age, and plain old human and brain evolution. All quite fascinating. I think I may have been spurred to dive into the stacks and max out my borrowing allowances because I had just come from a library conference, but it's been a while since I got my hands on a big pile of books, and I'm really enjoying the process of scanning through them for the information I need, while paging more slowly through the information I like. Ain't research grand?

I'm also trying to whip through a book on why children need fantasy violence, Killing Monsters. It's a pretty interesting read thus far, explaining how violence represented in media that are distinctly separate from a child's reality (toy soldiers, comic books, cartoons) can help children to understand violence better rather than desensitize them to it. I'm curious to get to some more in-depth analysis of where the border is between fantasy and reality, because that's where trouble often ensues, at least from the critics' perspectives.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I'm just out to share my thoughts lately - it takes a lot less time than actually stringing together the pieces, and guarantees I share anything at all!