Happiness Revisited - Class 4/27

      Today in class we read through an article entitled Happiness Revisited, after reading through the passage of writing we were prompted with a set of five questions. The first question posed was the following, When do you feel most happy? This particular question is something I have attempted to answer before, it holds a place in most of your life decisions, I have yet to produce a complete answer, at best my response is an educated guess. To respond in a somewhat concise manner I would say this, I am most happy when I am making decisions based solely on what I find interesting. As soon as a deadline is introduced an expected standard of quality I lose much of the passion I began with. Often I find this happiness in writing in my own time for my own reasons. This is the thought process that led me to pick the project that I did. Certainly there is a deadline and there are things that I can and cannot do but the project is loose enough to keep me interested and passionate.

    The second question addressed to us was a request to respond to the article before this. There are points with which I agree. The parts suggesting that you need to truly push yourself to progress and ultimately find greater happiness. I agree that we've progressed very little in understanding happiness. What I found issue with was this core piece of what's being called "flow." It's this theory that they've adapted to a chart. This chart has skills and challenges on it's two axis and details where you can find your happiness and where you will face boredom or anxiety. It just seems odd to speak on how we've learned little about happiness and then to go on to create a simple chart to depict happiness, it seems like a cheap answer to a complex question. Happiness is not attained the same way by everyone. 

    We were asked to say where we would be on the chart, I am not so sure that I am in fact on the chart. I would say I am suffering some anxiety from the project but it's not due to the amount of challenge exceeding the amount of skills I possess. The anxiety is simply due to tight time constraints, something that I have little control over which feeds into a piece in the article that speaks on how much of what effects your mood is beyond your control. Throughout my project I would say the amount of anxiety has increased, currently I am at the stage with the most work and a good amount of work left to do which depends on the reliability of others. It may decline if the next filming session goes well.
      The final question asked of us was, how can you achieve flow? In short complete filming, maybe the entire film then I will feel happy having reached a final product.