There is a Persian poem that tells the story of a powerful king who ruled the Persian Empire. One day, he assembled a group of wise men and charged them with a task: make a ring that will make him happy when he is sad and make him sad when he is happy. The wise men were puzzled – was the king asking for some magic ring capable of changing his mood? After much pondering and deliberation, they came up with a solution. The wise men presented the king with a simple ring, with its only remarkable feature being words etched on the outside. Words that the king could read whenever he was tearful or joyful. The king read the words and was pleased. It said: “This too shall pass”.
Why is the sky blue in the day, yet it becomes dyed bright red at sunset? The reason is that the atmosphere splits white light into the colours of the rainbow like a prism. Short-wavelength colours such as blue and green tend to scatter more, making the sky blue usually. But as the sun sets, the angle at which sunlight enters the atmosphere changes and the light has to travel through more atmosphere before hitting Earth. The more the light travels, the more it scatters and blue-green light is scattered so much that it can no longer be seen. At this stage, the dominant remaining colour are orange and red, which have longer wavelengths.
But this alone would only give the sky a dull red colour. The brilliant splash of red and orange across the sky every evening is thanks to the scattering of light in a certain way by cloud droplets and other particles. This is why an exceptionally bright orange sunset can suggest rain the following day.
A “perfect” sunset requires the alignment of various factors such as the angle of the sun (affected by time and season), humidity, temperature, air component and the surrounding landscape. Depending on these factors, the sunset can range in colour from a deep red to a bright orange, to a pastel yellow to baby pink or purple (or at worst, a piddly dull yellow light). This means that a perfect sunset tends to only happen at a single moment in time when these factors align to your preference.
The corollary to this is that a perfect sunset is always a fleeting moment. No matter how much you want to hold on to it, time marches on and the sunset slowly fades away. It is futile to stop the moment from passing – to cling to the beauty of the moment. All you can do is enjoy that single moment while you can. It is a time when the past day comes to a close, while the future is getting ready to start. In that moment, do not think about the past or the future – just focus on the present. Take in the brilliant colours with your eyes. Listen to the chirping of the birds returning home. Feel the cool breeze brush past you. When the sun finally sets, despair not the passing of the beautiful moment, but cherish the fact that you had such a great moment. Because as you know, another sunset awaits you tomorrow.
What is the commonality of the following? New parents holding their newborn baby, a young couple in love staring into each other’s eyes, catching up with an old friend and a hug. The obvious answer is that they are moments of happiness. But the real answer that lies beyond that is that they are all about connection. Human beings are social creatures and we are hardwired to like connecting with others. In the primitive days, not being connected to your tribemates meant a lower chance of survival. Over the years, we have evolved to the point where human connection is one of the greatest joys we can experience. Many things people may associate with “joy” such as money, sex and winning result in a flood of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is great, it gives us a rush and acts as a reward system, motivating us to do more of the behaviour as it will likely result in more food or mates. However, dopamine quickly wears off and you need another “hit” to replicate the effects. The happiness produced by connection is based on a different neurotransmitter called oxytocin, which is produced en masse in events like physical contact (e.g. hug) and during childbirth. Oxytocin acts different to dopamine in that it sets up a “circuit” that is associated with a memory. If you recall a memory – either consciously or when you meet a stimulus such as a certain smell that reminds you of it – the oxytocin circuit fires up and gives you a dose of happiness. Thus, oxytocin is sustainable, true happiness.
Of course, the corollary to this is that the greatest suffering we can experience is the feeling of disconnection. Breaking up with your other half, being rejected, a dear friend moving far away, the death of a loved one… These events make us feel as if a piece of heartstring snapped, leaving a scar that aches for a long while. In prison, one of the harshest punishments is solitary confinement, where the inmate has no contact with any other human being for a set time. A characteristic of borderline personality disorder is emotional instability and impulsive decisions. A major trigger for this is the feeling of abandonment or the fear of rejection. Borderline patients tend to misinterpret a person through black-and-white thinking, conclude they must hate them, feel rejected and may go on to harm themselves or even attempt suicide. There is also some anecdotal evidence saying that babies who are brought up in institutions without a parent figure to truly connect to are more likely to develop personality and mental disorders, with an increased risk of death in infancy. To not be connected to anyone is true suffering.
So if you are still on the pursuit of happiness, go out there and connect. Whether it be the excitement of getting to know a new person or the rekindling of an old friendship, connection is the ultimate happiness.
So my 30 day challenge has finished and I think it was rather successful! I believe it has reminded me of the small things that keep me happy. It’s also a good “slice of Jin’s life” from 2013.
Here’s a list of all 30 (click for a detailed explanation of each one)!
Hugging someone, or a pet, or a pillow. Maybe even falling asleep like that.
I was so tired after hospital yesterday that as soon as I got home I collapsed in bed and just hugged my pillow. It was so damn fluffy and soft and comfortable. Totally fell asleep for 15 min after that… Anyway, hugging releases oxytocin and endorphins and a whole shitload of feel-good hormones, so you should go hug someone. Right now.
Re-reading comics you loved as a child, loving and appreciating them even more now.
So I recently acquired The Complete Calvin and Hobbes set!!! It’s made of three beautiful hardcover books that contain ALL the Calvin and Hobbes strips that have been drawn~ 😀 Extremely ecstatic at the moment because Calvin and Hobbes is one of my favourite comics ever (seconded only by Peanuts) hehe. It has content ranging from hilariously innocent to deeply philosophical and thought-provoking. There’s so much stuff that I wouldn’t have gotten or appreciated as a kid, but make for very good life advice now that I’m more grown up. Here’s an example:
(click for bigger image)
I’m gonna marathon the whole thing from start to finish, hopefully not taking up too much study time haha. But a few pages in between study sessions won’t be harmful 🙂
Watching new episodes of your favourite shows and laughing so hard that all your worries and troubles melt away.
The new (and final) season of How I Met Your Mother started today!!! I’ve been so excited for this and the season premier (double episode) lived up to my expectations~ Had some good laughs hehe. I’m excited for what the rest of the season will bring, and I’m interested in the format of the season (won’t spoil anything). Also, there was a new episode of Adventure Time and that’s always welcome! 🙂
My good mood today is brought to you by what I said above, 9:30am finish from hospital, good nap, pumpkin soup (success!), nice salmon, new Magic cards (woo!), stormy weather and essentially no study. Daddy needed a break day after 34 hours of hospital over the weekends and Monday…
If you don’t know what flow state is, I urge you to learn about it: https://jineralknowledge.com/flow (yes I’m linking you to an ARK post as always).
For me, the things that put me in flow state include playing my guitar, writing ARK and obsessing about a topic and reading everything about it. It’s so hard to describe, but in that state you feel like nothing else matters. It’s just you and whatever you’re doing. The moment.
One of the best advice for having a happy life I’ve found so far is to discover what your flow is. Whether it be playing an instrument, engaging your creativity or sweating it out through sports, if you find even ONE hobby that will put you in that state of mind, trust me, it’ll change your life.
Of course, one of the best flow states to be in is when you’re so engaged in a conversation with a person that time becomes infinite and you never want to leave that conversation.
I don’t know if that counts as “simple”. But despite all the work and emotional energy that goes into a loving relationship – be it family, friend or lover – love is essentially a simple pleasure. Even when you’re having the most difficult day, a fleeting image of that person’s smile or a memory you shared will instantly restore your energy and put a smile on your face.
For example, I get flashbacks to my childhood and the days I spent with my parents and that makes me happy. Or I’ll think of some crazy adventures that I’ve been on with close friends. Or various other memories with people I cared about that makes me laugh to myself.
Life is full of chance and coincidences. Coincidences can range from something simple like bumping into someone you haven’t seen in a while at a supermarket, to what some people call “fate” or “miracle” or “destiny”.
Mathematics will tell you that coincidences are simply the product of the law of large numbers – that it is merely a statistical event. Psychology will tell you that we are just victims of the regression fallacy. Religious people will tell you that it is an act of god.
For me, happy coincidences are just little events in life that spice things up a bit. I don’t believe in fate or destiny or some omnipotent deity, but that doesn’t mean that I treat coincidences as unimportant random events. I find that rather than dismissing it, identifying it as something good makes my life a little bit happier. Who cares if the reason that all the traffic lights were green might be a sign? Who cares if the reason that the song that JUST happens to fit my mood comes on a shuffled playlist was statistical chance? Who cares if you call meeting your soul partner destiny?
What matters to me in the end is that it happened and it made me happy. I also find identifying the coincidences and the steps that led to it happening quite interesting (because I’m a huge nerd, which I say with pride). For example, if I had decided to stick with my plan of going to Asan Hospital instead of Severance Hospital for my selective this year, I wouldn’t have met the girl that invited me to WKMSO and I wouldn’t have met the awesome people I did, nor would I have had my unforgettable NYC/Vegas adventure.
Maybe the reason it makes me happy is that knowing that if even a tiny detail was changed, say if I was put on a different shift to that person, things would have turned out quite differently. For better or for worse. But the fact is that things happened to happen in the way it did and it led to me having an amazing time.
And that my friends, is a long-winding rant-y explanation to why I love the butterfly effect.
