2004.04.17
'People start out in life pretty certain that they're going to end up like David Beckham or win the Nobel Prize,' says Oswald. 'Then, after a few years, they discover it's quite tough out there - not just in their careers, but in life. Unsurprisingly, their happiness drops.' The good news is that the downer doesn't last. According to Oswald, if you trace the trajectory of most peoples' happiness over time it resembles a J-curve. People typically record high satisfaction levels in their early twenties. These then fall steadily towards middle age, before troughing at around 42. Most of us then grow steadily happier as we get older, with those in their sixties expressing the highest satisfaction levels of all - as long, that is, as they stay healthy.I'm trying to judge my own level of happiness right now. Irina, a co-worker (we're not really close but once or twice a year maintenance of this one project has us working intensely together for a few days, and she seems very tuned into people's moods caught me coming in from the parking garage bopping along, doing this human beatbox thing I sometimes do (I like the echo in the garage) and she said I seemed SO much happier than when I was working with her around a month ago; there was a day or two when I was working with her when I had seemed really distracted and out of it and kind of miserable; she had a lot more trouble following my train of thought that day, actually. So I guess there's a possibility I've turned the corner. I think Peterman might've said something similar.
On the other hand, there's still this weird undercurrent of sadness I inadvertently run into from time to time, like a stream still moving under a layer of ice. Sometimes a sad song or scene of someone crying in a movie will break through, and I'll find myself weepy. Usually it passes pretty quickly, but still, it bothers me, I think the only time I went through a period like that was when my dad died and I don't remember if it lasted this long or not.
I don't know what percentage of the sadness is over Mo specifically, or just the kind of fears of loneliness in a more general sense.
(But how can I be anything BUT happy, Red Sox romped over the bum Yankees last night...)
Games of the Moment
Yeti Sports is building its way to a full Yeti/Pingu decathlon; it's not just Penguin Baseball any longer!
Disney of the Moment
The troubles with the Mickey Mouse brand. When I saw one of those "Mickey through the decades" shirts, I noticed how much more human looking he's become--the article mentions this progression (actually, retrogression into an infant's proportions) but misses the obvious one...at some point he became caucasian-flesh-colored. But the mouse has no back story, and is kind of suffering because of it.
My girlfriend Marnie had a box from a Disney Mug up in her locker in high school, a stylized Mickey arm and glove...I always thought it was weird how it looked just like he had a stigmata. I envisioned the church of Mickey Christ, with Saint Goofy and what not.
Incidentally, I saw "Lilo and Stitch" last night for the first time. It's probably my favorite Disney film ever, except for maybe Fantasia, just because of the cool cartoony Sci-Fi elements.
Article of the Moment
What Google Is Up To. An interesting idea: more than anything else, Google may be a forming the hardware and supporting system for building "web sized" applications. Essentially, they already have a high availabity mirror of the entire Web, and the infrastructure (technology- and personnel-wise) that keeps that up and running 24/7. That gives them a huge advantage over almost anyone.