Thursday, September 23, 2010

Hector and the Search for Happiness

Lesson One: Making comparisons can stop people from being happy

...or something like that.

8 comments:

  1. well, see, this is what I wasn't doing over at Ms Mel's yesterday when I joined in on her whining Wednesday - I was just getting my niggles off my chest (and into her comment box - oops) not comparing or advocating that my worries are/were worse than hers. . .

    I wasn't comparing, just adding to (well, not really that either)

    I remember when I was first diagnosed with post natal depression and the nurse who came to visit me listened to me saying that I had nothing to complain about cos I had a husband who had a job and we had a house and three healthy children and just think of all those poor single mothers in council blocks. . .

    she stopped me right in my tracks and told me not to compare myself to others - because it's just not relevant

    so I think Hector's first point works both ways

    it's just not healthy to be making comparisons the whole time

    yikes! I'm thirsty now. . .

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  2. I totally agree that it works both ways. I learned long ago that everybody's woes are valid. There's simply no point in the popular act of one-upping. And there's no solace in noting that others have bigger problems. It's not relevant, if one has a problem, it's irrespective of any relation/comparison to any other problem.

    Now, in the context of the book. Hector is dead on right. To an ex-millionaire, $100,000 is quite a disappointment (assuming that the ex-millionaire is typical of the population at large and can't see things for what they are but only as what they are compared to something else) but to an ex-hundredaire (it's a word! I made it one) that same $100,000 is a FORTUNE.

    So, perhaps it's not really the comparison after all, but the perspective.

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  3. so, when I read the book I was going to type up the whole list, and use it to refer to everynowandagain. . .

    . . .however the parts of the list that I currently "don'"t have (and the fact he pointed them out!) made me a little sad. . .

    . . .the only thing that really annoyed me about the book as a whole, and in general as a read, was that Hector seemed a little bit of a prat occasionally - kind of naive, and altho this made him seem sweet, which I guess was the point, it also bugged me

    (not that I disagreed with his list)

    ((it made me want to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull again, as a much older person, to see what I thought about it now))

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  4. Hmm, I didn't get the 'prat' bit. The whole tone was written in such a simple, children's book-ish tone that I took it at face value that Hector was just a sort of Everyman, with the gifts and abilities required of such a character to give him a bit of credibility as a knowledgeable and impartial student of 'happiness'. I think he needed to be simple in order to be able to objectively 'observe' what made people happy or unhappy.

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  5. yes, agreed, but what about when he went to the nightclub and picked up the escort girl? if he's a pyschiatrist he's well educated and experienced. . .

    . . .that's about the only quibble I had with the book

    if you want him to be an "everyman", then couldn't he have been a peasant wandering around a village making the same observations? rather than a successful doctor who could afford to jet about the world! but I'm not trying to quibble - I think the list is very put together, and the book very readable and I liked Hector as a character

    maybe I'm just too cynical for my own good

    don't want that to make it seem like I didn't enjoy the book, because I did

    I'll go away now

    *hangs head in shame*

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  6. He COULD have been a wandering peasant (Siddhartha comes to mind) but since the author is a head-shrink, he made his protagonist a head-shrink. I'm ok with that.

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  7. ooo, maybe we should read Siddhartha next?

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  8. Um, I have to say that Hector came over to me as a construct designed to disarm the negative and cynical mind.
    And I did take the points and they were well presented. But I really didn't think it qualified as a novel. More a sort of illustrated guide. For children.

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