A Tale of Two Cities

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it …

Homo Ludens _What is in PLAY that makes us human?

Typically, the identification of play and work is often observed as two opposing activities. Understandably so, since there is a pointlessness aura entwined with play, to play is to have no care towards an ulterior motive.[1] While work is done with regard or to satisfy certain outcomes, playing is pursued and performed merely for the …

Sense and Intelligibility

Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem describes Moriarty by saying: "He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city ... He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every …

The Urban School of Happiness

When it comes to differentiating happiness and pleasure, I would rather say where pleasure is pure instinct, happiness is not only the matter of physical, but also moral education. That is, finding oneself happy, has an undercurrent of a moral sense that is gained and cultivated through education. Both hedonic and eudemonic aspects of happiness can be …

Invisible Hands in Happiness

While one might argue the model of happiness that has been celebrated by mechanisms of power is not completely reflecting reality, it is undeniably tenacious. We hear it rehearsed daily on advertisements ruled by commodity exchange, mass media driven by the interests of market or even politician’s election promises. This was well expressed by Neil …

Rococo, the Declaration of Happiness

From the latter days of Louis XIV reign until around the time of the French revolution, the aristocratic art commissioners became more and more interested in cheerful art pieces. No more the splendour and symmetry of Baroque was à la mode, instead Rococo was what nobility wanted to commission. Playful and delightful Rococo, to charm …

Ozymandias Melancholia, an Ode to Joy

Woody Allen used the term Ozymandias Melancholia for the first time in his 1980 movie Stardust Memories. Ozymandias, king of kings; was a pharaoh, probably Ramsses II, that both Smith and Shelley in 1818, wrote sonnets about the ruination of his majesty in time, giving a sense of futility of life. In Smith’s words: In …

Kitsch Happiness

Steve Cutts,[1] the creator of the short animation Happiness and merciless critic of the advertised or even capitalised style of happiness, has likened people's pursuit of happiness to a rat race. Alcoholic drinks, medical supplements, big brands marketed by many means identifiable in our everyday lives, all are accounts that assert the status quo, and urge …

Hyde Park, Happiness probabilities, and the Nature Pulse

When I was living in London, one of my happy places was Hyde Park. I used to go to the Speakers' Corner to hear strange political opinions by those who used to stand on a stool shouting their heart out for one ideology or another. Sometimes I’d have just walked around the serpentine and watch …

Happiness and Hemlock for the City

The speculative discussion on a “Universal inclination towards happiness” [1] could be seen in Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals(1785). In which, on the principle of ethics, he elaborates that it goes without saying that everyone prefers pleasure over pain, the problem is when we let pleasure to rule our behaviour. Kant holds …