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THE HAPPINESS CONTROVERSY: Balancing Blues and Bliss in Creativity and Daily Life
Stanford Continuing Studies Course with Carolyn Foster
2 Saturdays, JANUARY 31 and FEBRUARY 7, 2009
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM each day
Is happiness a misguided pursuit and a bar to creative productivity or a set of strategies needed for professional success and personal fulfillment? Bookstore shelves testify to the resurgence of this controversy with newly published volumes of contrary opinion and research. One side suggests that genius requires dissatisfaction to spur creative work. Pain and sadness are transmuted into art. The other side suggests that there is, as one author puts it, “a scientific approach to getting the life you want.” Happiness is within everyone’s reach, and you can even assess which strategies will work best for you. Participants in this workshop will examine the evidence and conclusions of scholars on both sides of the happiness vs. melancholy debate. Through readings, discussion, and in-class writing exercises, we will see what balance of blues and bliss works for each of us. Our dialogue may point to a third way that moderates the extremes, giving rich meaning to our emotional life, of which the poet Rumi wrote, “This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.”
To register, go to www.continuingstudies.stanford.edu and search by title in Winter Quarter courses.
To receive email or regular mail notification of details of this retreat and how to register, go to the contact page and call or email Carolyn with your request.