Tom Guarriello contrasts two ways of thinking about happiness: the calculative approach, which uses data to predict well-being (Dan Gilbert's research shows money and status have fleeting effects), and the poetic approach, which embraces mystery and paradox, illustrated through Wisława Szymborska's poem "Happy Love."
Well, hi, it's Tom Guarriello. A quick video, I hope quick, about two different, really different approaches to the world. And one of my, one of the philosophers that had the biggest influence on my life was Martin Heidegger. And Martin Heidegger wrote a lot late in his life about two different kinds of thinking, and he called them calculative thinking and poetic dwelling thinking. And, you know, he went on to describe what they were and so on. And I just wanted to point out a really concrete difference between those two kinds of thinking that I've come across recently. And the topic of these two treatments, two different ways of thinking, is happiness. And the calculative approach, scientific if you will, to happiness is contained in this book, Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert, a really good book, does a great job of describing the research on happiness and the ways in which people think they're going to be made happy by things like money, bigger car, and so on. And now they're really not, we're really not made happy by those things for very long. We very quickly want the next big thing. And he even says, you know, excuse me, would it really have made a difference if you would have gotten that girl or that guy that you really loved and really thought was great versus the person that you're with now? Would that really have made a difference in happiness in your life? And he says, no, no, research says no, not really. So that's, you know, one way of thinking about happiness. Another treatment of the same subject is by a wonderful Polish poet, a woman named Wisława Szymborska. Wisława Szymborska. And Szymborska won the Nobel Prize in the— I guess it was sometime in the mid-'90s. And is a terrific poet. And so I wanted to read you one of her poems to show you the difference between poetic thinking about happiness and what we— and the calculative approach to happiness that we just— that I just briefly, very briefly outlined in the Gilbert book. And the title of the poem that I want to read to you is "Happy Love." Happy love. Is that normal? Is that serious? Is that useful? What does the world get out of two people who don't see the world? Lifted towards each other for no valid reason, no different from a million others, but convinced that it had to be thus. As reward for what? Nothing. Light falling from nowhere. Why on them and not on others? Does this offend justice? Yes. Does it upset solicitously piled principles? Does it upset morals? It does upset and topple them. Look at these happy people. Would they at least put on some disguise, pretend despondency, to sustain their friends? Hear how they laugh offensively. The language they use, seemingly intelligible. As for those ceremonies, the fuss, their fanciful reciprocal duties, they look like a conspiracy behind humanity's back. It's hard to predict the outcome if their example could be followed. What would sustain religion and poets? What would be remembered? What abandoned? Who would wish to stay within its bounds? Happy love— is it necessary? It's tactful and sensible to ignore this scandal in life's higher spheres. Fine babies are born without its assistance. Never, never could it populate the earth, given its rare occurrence. Let people who haven't known happy love insist it's nowhere to be found. With such faith, it'll be easier for them to live and to die. Wisława Szymborska, a very different way of talking about happiness. Take it easy.
