Despite my reputation as a jaundiced miserabilist (which of course is an entirely false, flimsy, fallacious fabulation, concocted for the sheer amusement of confounding the one-dimensional, irony depleted, humour by-passed, unfunny folk who seem to clog up the comments section on all the blogs I post to,) my happiness set-point is really rather high. Most days it hovers around the 6-7 out of 10. This actually makes me one of the jolliest chaps I know. Not that I walk around permanently grinning with debonair indifference to the worries and woes of the world around me. I live in Beeston, for heavens sake, and we don’t really have much to be happy about in my part of town. Still, I manage to wring out as much pleasure as I possibly can from the tattered and faded threads that make up the fabric of my life, and when that proves difficult I just make stuff up. When life gives you lemons, it’s time to research some good cocktail recipes.
So, I do consider myself something of an expert on happiness, an aficionado even. Which is why I was curious about the Bring the Happy project that opened in Leeds last Friday in The Light. I was determined to attend the opening event. I’d got an invite and everything (or rather, Emma had and I just got lucky.) And I really, honestly was about to leave the Leeds Loves Shopping Marquee after drinking the free bar dry and eating enough complimentary cake to feed a decent sized suburb when I got waylaid . . . no, more accurately, kidnapped by a couple of New Zealand sisters determined to force feed me Champaigne in the Harvey Nicks bar and entertain me with tall tales and witty repartee till midnight. Then they dragged me kicking and screaming to The Lounge where we had more Champaigne, Jaegermeister (does anyone else think that stuff tastes like Buttercup Syrup? Ah, happy childhood memories of swigging gallons of the stuff and innocently self-medicating!) and tray fulls of wonderful snacks, compliments of the lovely manager Sean (by the way, did you know his dad’s a very famous opera singer? True.) So, though I missed the opening event I do believe that I significantly contributed to the overall sum of happiness to be had in Leeds that night, and I’d say it rated 8.5 – 9 out of 10, which wasn’t bad for a dismal and drippy October evening. It would certainly have warranted a 10 if only one thing weren’t missing . . . and, no, it’s not what some of you are thinking. Just an entirely innocent act of omission . . .
Anyway I did get to Bring the Happy on Saturday afternoon. And, actually, it was probably a good time to go as it made it easier to see what the whole thing is all about (and I still got a free beer, which always makes me inordinately happy.) The idea is simply to map individual happy memories in Leeds. You write down your memory, mark it on the virtual map, rate it out of ten, upload it, then one of the people from Invisible flock places a glass rod representing the value on one of the actual physical maps that they have built . . . sounds pretty obvious? What I loved about about it was the entirely unexpected patterns that were already forming after only 60 or so memories. I expected that most people would write down a “Ten” memory; I did, and a pretty saccharine syrupy one at that. And I thought that most people would have memories from the places they lived, the outskirts, not the city centre. But oddly, most memories were concentrated in the centre and were not uniformly high rated or world shatteringly intense. In fact they ranged from “3” (getting married!) to “10” (a hand job! Now there’s a lady doing her little bit for the greater good . . . or could be a guy? . . . excuse my hapless reflex lapse into heterobviousnous!)
I was only there for twenty minutes or so but the experience was fascinating. I’m certainly going to go back and maybe add more memories, going down the scale perhaps, nine to zero (though how would they mark zero? And what exactly is zero happiness?). Anyone who’s in The Light make sure you drop in when you’re passing and add your two penn’oth, it would be great to see the map entirely covered by the end of the project in six weeks time. If you’re taking your kinds in with you be careful they don’t knock the glass rods over . . . they do look a bit like skittles if you’re a toddler.Despite my reputation as a jaundiced miserabilist (which of course is an entirely false, flimsy, fallacious fabulation, concocted for the sheer amusement of confounding the one-dimensional, irony depleted, humour by-passed, unfunny folk who seem to clog up the comments section on all the blogs I post to,) my happiness set-point is really rather high. Most days it hovers around the 6-7 out of 10. This actually makes me one of the jolliest chaps I know. Not that I walk around permanently grinning with debonair indifference to the worries and woes of the world around me. I live in Beeston, for heavens sake, and we don’t really have much to be happy about in my part of town. Still, I manage to wring out as much pleasure as I possibly can from the tattered and faded threads that make up the fabric of my life, and when that proves difficult I just make stuff up. When life gives you lemons, it’s time to research some good cocktail recipes.
So, I do consider myself something of an expert on happiness, an aficionado even. Which is why I was curious about the Bring the Happy project that opened in Leeds last Friday in The Light. I was determined to attend the opening event. I’d got an invite and everything (or rather, Emma had and I just got lucky.) And I really, honestly was about to leave the Leeds Loves Shopping Marquee after drinking the free bar dry and eating enough complimentary cake to feed a decent sized suburb when I got waylaid . . . no, more accurately, kidnapped by a couple of New Zealand sisters determined to force feed me Champaigne in the Harvey Nicks bar and entertain me with tall tales and witty repartee till midnight. Then they dragged me kicking and screaming to The Lounge where we had more Champaigne, Jaegermeister (does anyone else think that stuff tastes like Buttercup Syrup? Ah, happy childhood memories of swigging gallons of the stuff and innocently self-medicating!) and tray fulls of wonderful snacks, compliments of the lovely manager Sean (by the way, did you know his dad’s a very famous opera singer? True.) So, though I missed the opening event I do believe that I significantly contributed to the overall sum of happiness to be had in Leeds that night, and I’d say it rated 8.5 – 9 out of 10, which wasn’t bad for a dismal and drippy October evening. It would certainly have warranted a 10 if only one thing weren’t missing . . . and, no, it’s not what some of you are thinking. Just an entirely innocent act of omission . . .
Anyway I did get to Bring the Happy on Saturday afternoon. And, actually, it was probably a good time to go as it made it easier to see what the whole thing is all about (and I still got a free beer, which always makes me inordinately happy.) The idea is simply to map individual happy memories in Leeds. You write down your memory, mark it on the virtual map, rate it out of ten, upload it, then one of the people from Invisible flock places a glass rod representing the value on one of the actual physical maps that they have built . . . sounds pretty obvious? What I loved about about it was the entirely unexpected patterns that were already forming after only 60 or so memories. I expected that most people would write down a “Ten” memory; I did, and a pretty saccharine syrupy one at that. And I thought that most people would have memories from the places they lived, the outskirts, not the city centre. But oddly, most memories were concentrated in the centre and were not uniformly high rated or world shatteringly intense. In fact they ranged from “3” (getting married!) to “10” (a hand job! Now there’s a lady doing her little bit for the greater good . . . or could be a guy? . . . excuse my hapless reflex lapse into heterobviousnous!)
I was only there for twenty minutes or so but the experience was fascinating. I’m certainly going to go back and maybe add more memories, going down the scale perhaps, nine to zero (though how would they mark zero? And what exactly is zero happiness?). Anyone who’s in The Light make sure you drop in when you’re passing and add your two penn’oth, it would be great to see the map entirely covered by the end of the project in six weeks time. If you’re taking your kinds in with you be careful they don’t knock the glass rods over . . . they do look a bit like skittles if you’re a toddler.
Despite my reputation as a jaundiced miserabilist (which of course is an entirely false, flimsy, fallacious fabulation, concocted for the sheer amusement of confounding the one-dimensional, irony depleted, humour by-passed, unfunny folk who seem to clog up the comments section on all the blogs I post to,) my happiness set-point is really rather high. Most days it hovers around the 6-7 out of 10 mark. This actually makes me one of the jolliest chaps I know. Not that I walk around permanently grinning with debonair indifference to the worries and woes of the world around me. I live in Beeston, for heavens sake, and we don’t really have much to be happy about in my part of town. Still, I manage to wring out as much pleasure as I possibly can from the tattered and faded threads that make up the fabric of my life, and when that proves difficult I just make stuff up. When life gives you lemons, it’s time to research some good cocktail recipes I always say.
So, I do consider myself something of an expert on happiness, an aficionado of levity even. Which is why I was curious about the Bring the Happy project that opened in Leeds last Friday in The Light. I was determined to attend the opening event. I’d got an invite and everything (or rather, Emma had and I just got lucky.) And I really, honestly, truly was about to leave the Leeds Loves Shopping Marquee on Briggate in plenty of time, after drinking the free bar dry and eating enough complimentary cake to feed a Royal Jubilee type event in a decent sized suburb when I got waylaid . . . no, more accurately, kidnapped by a couple of New Zealand sisters determined to force feed me Champagne in the Harvey Nicks bar and entertain me with tall tales, improbable anecdotes and witty repartee till way past midnight. Then they dragged me kicking and screaming to The Lounge where we had more Champagne, Jaegermeister (does anyone else think that stuff tastes like Buttercup Syrup? Ah, happy childhood memories of swigging gallons of the luscious liquid and innocently self-medicating myself to catatonic stupor!) and tray fulls of wonderful snacks, compliments of the lovely manager Sean (by the way, did you know his dad’s a very famous opera singer? True.) So, though I missed the opening event I do believe that I significantly contributed to the overall sum of happiness to be had in Leeds that night, and I’d say it rated 8.5 – 9 out of 10, which wasn’t too bad for a dismal and drippy October evening. It would certainly have warranted a 10 if only one thing weren’t missing . . . and, no, it’s not what some of you are thinking. Just an entirely innocent act of omission . . .
Anyway I did get to Bring the Happy on Saturday afternoon. And, actually, it was probably a good time to go as it made it easier to see what the whole thing is all about (I still got a free beer too, which always makes me inordinately happy.) The idea is simply to map individual happy memories in Leeds. You write down your memory, mark it on the virtual computer map, rate it out of ten, upload it, then one of the people from Invisible flock places a glass rod representing the value of the happiness on one of the actual physical maps that they have built in the shop space . . . sounds pretty obvious? What I loved about about it was the entirely unexpected patterns that were already forming after only 60 or so memories. I expected that most people would write down a “Ten” memory; I did, and a pretty saccharine syrupy one at that. Long lost love, blah bloody blah. And I thought that most people would contribute memories from the places they lived, the outskirts, not the city centre. But oddly, most memories were concentrated in the centre and were not uniformly high rated or world shatteringly intense. In fact they ranged from “3” (getting married!) to “10” (a hand job! Now there’s a lady doing her little bit for the greater good . . . or could be a guy? . . . excuse my hapless reflex lapse into heterobviousnous!)
I was only there for twenty minutes or so but the experience was fascinating. I’m certainly going to go back and maybe add more memories, going down the scale perhaps, nine to zero (though how would they mark zero? And what exactly is zero happiness? Is it even possible to reach ground zero happiness?). Anyone who’s in The Light in the next few weeks make sure that you drop in when you’re passing and add your two penn’oth, it would be great to see the map entirely covered by the end of the project. If you’re taking your kids in with you be careful they don’t knock the glass rods over . . . they do look a bit like skittles if you’re a toddler.
When I initially commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a remark is added I get 4 emails with the same comment. Is there any method you can remove me from that service? Thanks!
Read the fine print of Disney’s org-chart it very clearly states that the org chart DOES NOT indicate authority relationships. Thus, I’m quite confident that the “org chart” Disney released is really just a data flow chart, and its real org chart is every bit as hierarchical as any other company.