Writelife

I’ve started a number of posts today and didn’t complete any of them. I think I’m dealing with the residual effects of last week.

But I may have embarked on a new project. If I’m ambitious, I’ll weave it in to another little project I’m planning. If I’m not ambitious (and this is the more likely eventuality), I won’t.

It began with picking up a new book today, Happiness: The Science behind Your Smile by Daniel Nettle. Here’s an intriguing quote from the Introduction:

“The systems controlling pleasure are not identical to those controlling desire. This is an important lesson; the psychology of aspiration is not that of satisfaction. We do not always want what we like or like what we want.”

(Ha ha … does that describe relationships, or what?)

It promises to be an interesting read. Also interesting … This book was in the science section as it’s about the psychology, the brain etc. … but as I turned around I realised the books on the other side were Self-Help and the first book I saw there was called … Happiness. (It even had a quote by Richard Gere.) Unfortunately, I’m not interested in the touchy-feely aspects. I like the ones that discuss how the brain works.

For what it’s worth (not having read the book yet) I think happiness, the vague and elusive whatever-the-hell-it-is, is related to a sense of purpose.

By the way, as usual I’m reading several books at once. So I’m also in process of reading The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery. (The book is subtitled How we are changing the climate and what it means for life on Earth.) As you can image, it’s all about climate change and global warming. And I won’t say anymore about that. (For now.)

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