I’m currently on vacation in Hawaii with my family. This morning we went to a lava-filled park where petroglyphs had been carved into the hardened stone centuries ago. From there it was a quick walk to a ‘beach’ made of lava and dead coral pieces. In the tide pools I saw things that I had never seen in the wild anywhere else: sea urchins, a small eel (well, maybe a long skinny fish?), multiple sea cucumbers, and 3 large sea turtles that were grazing on the plant-covered rocks. So I’m happy, right?<\/p>\n
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Actually, I’ve been dreading this trip for the past 3 months, and never mind the unpleasantness of flying. Once we arrived we stepped off the plane into the type of heat (the temperature wanders down to the low 70’s late at night, and then shoots back up to 85-90 for the rest of the day) and off-the-charts humidity that I associate with my graduate school days in Wisconsin. Yuck.<\/p>\n
To make things even dicier, I’m hobbling on a tender ankle dating back to an injury in mid-January, and every trip outside begins with what looks like a lose-lose choice: slather sunscreen or slather mosquito repellent onto my sweat-covered skin? And if all that wasn’t enough, just before we left for the beach, one of my children who had gone on ahead called to say she was returning because she had accidentally stepped on a sea urchin, and some spines had broken off in her toe. And that was that for the afternoon beach trip.<\/p>\n
All of this background is just a frame for a fundamental question: What is happiness? All kinds of people have been reassuring me for the past 3 months that I will have a “good time in Hawaii.” The trip isn’t over yet so I just might, but I’ll probably be happy for sure when I return to Portland next week.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, here are links to two science stories from the latest Nautilus magazine that discuss possible connections between happiness and brain function. Enjoy. Be happy!<\/p>\n