My thought is that this needs its own branch.
That is incredibly interesting, and a little bit sad/defeatist.
Genetic Happiness
Last week, I was required to take notes on this lecture from Yale's Intro to Psych class to prove I knew how to take notes. It was trimmed to the final segment on happiness psychology (sadly, the link with the start/end times is gone now), which posits that we all have a genetic predisposition to a certain level of happiness that may be impossible to permanently change, even with massive positive or negative events in our lives.
youtube.com
Intriguing stuff. Thoughts?
I don't have time to watch this yet; I'll do so after chemistry class... :/
I...have to watch this again as well. After studying for midterms. Ah...life...
I will say that the thing that initially "caught" me about this was the idea that we inevitably break down into two groups--those seeking endless novelty-based happiness and those seeking something other than happiness. I feel like YouTube can provide a kind of demonstration of that dichotomy; there's a side of it that's about being new and different and engaging and spontaneous, and there's an equally powerful (yet far less recognized) side of it that's about saying something meaningful, sometimes at the sacrifice of novelty or "sizzle" (see: zefrank, vlogbrothers).
Again, I need to rewatch it, but...that was my biggest immediate takeaway.
