Category Archives: Religion / Spirituality

This latest New Yorker article is a nice follow up to my quote of the day on the pursuit of happiness. It’s required reading for anyone interested in this, and includes nice overviews of the recent books The Happiness Hypothesis and Happiness: A History.

I’m a believer in positive psychology (that’s why I loved Flow – happiness is an experience to be cultivated) but some folks quoted in this article say that once we’re out of poverty the most important determinant of happiness is our "set point," which is inherited. "Within a year, lottery winners and paraplegics have both (on average) returned most of the way to their baseline levels of happiness."

Do you buy this? I buy it halfway. I still believe voluntary activities, state of mind, and other circumstances play a role. But I’m also an unabashed "nature" believer.

The article concludes with a witty yet misguided assumption. "If you want to be happy, don’t ever ask yourself if you are." I suppose that it’s possible for an unhappy person to become even more unhappy as they contemplate their unhappiness. Yet I think this is a one way street. I don’t think a happy person can become unhappy if their contemplation "presses unhappily hard on us." I am happy, and also like thinking about my own energetic quest for even more happiness, and more spiritual fulfillment.

One of the more interesting findings in Flow: The Psychology of the Optimal Experience was that people note they are often in "flow" states while driving. Most of us may think of road rage or phone calls. Today out of three different driving segments, I spoke on the phone the whole way during two of them. The one segment where I didn’t talk, I put on the radio, listened to Just My Imagination by The Temptations, and found myself deeply relaxed. I am going to try to talk as little as I can while driving going forward. Driving is one of the last places where I can think, and listen to my thoughts without constant distractions.

On a side note, if you’re looking for a relaxing — and interesting — song, check out "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap.

Morality is one of my big interests (and a personal value, of course – top-notch ethics is key). The Chronicle of Higher Education has a good, if overly long, essay (free, for now) on why even devout religious people should subject their decisions to rigorous moral reasoning. It’s so easy and tempting for us to be told what to do in certain moral quandaries. It’s so easy to do what everyone else in your religion is doing, or what God says is right, or what some book says. This does not build a resilient and accurate moral compass. It is the responsibility of every rational person to use the evidence around them and their own personal values to make critical decisions, even if it goes against the status quo of your religion. They say that true character is shown when times are tough. When times are tough, there are no easy answers, and certainly no answers that the convenience of religion can offer.

While the rest of the world is watching 24 (my partner Dave entertains himself by emailing me updates like Bauer just saved my beloved Ontario International Airport), I can’t afford to be emotionally brought to my knees this spring so instead I chowed down this lovely essay on spirituality in America over at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

If I had to check a box next to Religion, I would search for "Spiritual, not religious." This may seem like an odd designation – after all, I don’t believe in God nor do I believe in dualism (a soul independent of the body). But, I do consider myself spiritual in the New Agey kind of sense. I like buddhism, I like meditation, I like introspection, I’m starting yoga in March, I like the sound of waves crashing against the rocks as the sun sets. Most important, I am on an endless quest for truth, for meaning, for understanding. This attitude is all fuel for David Brooks’ fire who says “soft-core spirituality,” with its attendant “psychobabble” and “easygoing narcissism,” is epidemic.

In this essay Professor Schmidt outlines six characteristics of American spirituality:

• a yearning for mystical experience  or epiphanic awareness                  

• a valuing of silence, solitude, and sustained meditation                  

• a belief in the immanence of the divine in nature and attunement to that presence                   

• a cosmopolitan appreciation of religious variety, along with a search for unity in diversity

• an ethical earnestness in pursuit of justice-producing, progressive reforms                   

• an emphasis on self-cultivation, artistic creativity, and adventuresome seeking                   

Now, if only a church existed to cultivate such an outlook! (More on that idea in our next exciting mission.)

The most provocative piece in the December Atlantic is one titled Is God an Accident? (subscribers only, I can email it to you if you want):

Despite the vast number of religions, nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine creation of the universe. Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for this phenomenon. One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry.

Also some interesting discussion of our propensity to believe in dualism – our body and soul are separate entities. It’s fascinating to read about studies of young children and how they think about this stuff. Shows that before any socialization some have certain inclinations toward supernatural beliefs.