Max Kanig
10/28/15
The World We Live In

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2VCwBzGdPM

Happiness: It comes in many forms shapes and sizes. It is what everyone wants but no one can truly find. Happiness hides in everything, our friends, family, pets, and all the other things in our lives. Sara Ahmed writes about happiness in her piece “Why Happiness, Why Now?”. In the piece she discusses possible definitions for happiness as well talk about how it has changed through society. She talks about the science of happiness and how it presumes that happiness is “out there” (5). She goes on to state that one one of the biggest assumptions made by the science of happiness is that it, being happiness, is always good. The point is made shortly after claiming the if happiness is good then it is measurable and the goal is to be the happiest. To Ahmed this is a bit of a new concept she outright says it’s a new topic and most of the points she makes are cited from other Professors, Writers, and Scholars. Supporting this point that happiness is “out there” is Louis Armstrong’s song “What a Wonderful World”. The song talks about how happiness can be found in the world around us and that you simply have to look for it. Both pieces of literature point to the same thing, that happiness is out there in the world waiting to be found. Ahmeds text takes a more detailed look at where and what happiness is. While Armstrong takes a step back and looks at life and happiness as a big picture.

The song What a Wonderful World is short and sweet. The song seems to be a first person narrative in which Armstrong takes a look at the world in a different light. He looks at in in terms of life as a whole. He says “I hear baby’s cry, and I watched them grow. They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know” (Armstrong 11). Here he is talking about the happiness of change. Everything changes especially people if you step back and watch babies grow learn and mature to help the world around them. That is happiness, there is nothing more parents want then to see their children grow and learn. He also says,
“The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by”
(Armstrong 7-8).
In those lines on the surface he makes the observation that the colors from the pretty rainbow in the sky are reflected on the faces of the people walking by. Underneath the colors he is hinting to a deeper meaning. The point he is making is that people gain happiness from the objects around them. The people passing by in his lyrics are getting happiness from seeing the rainbow and that is reflected back on their faces. The smiles people get from seeing hearing or feeling things are indications of happiness. In the text Ahmed talks about happiness indicators. Happiness indicators give us a look at how one person’s happiness ranks up against another’s.

Ahmed in quoting Richard Layard says “Happiness is “feeling good”… So “out there” is really “in here””(Ahmed 5). Through the words of Layard, Ahmed is pointing out the fact that happiness is a feeling we get from the world around us so happiness is inside of everyone. Although we only feel the happiness when it is sparked by the world around us. Armstrong also supports this claim with the line “What a wonderful world” (3). This line is repeated throughout the song, as it reminds the listener that even though times may be hard we live in a wonderful world and that happiness is out there waiting to fill us up. Ahmed talks more details about the science of happiness, how it can be measured by how good things are. If things are good for you, then you are happy. People also gain happiness from each other, one person may smile someone may see this realize they are also happy and break out into a big grin.
Ahmed and Armstrong both hint towards similar ideas in their respective texts. Happiness is out there in every part of your life. It is inside of all of us locked away to be released by the people and objects around us in the wonderful world we call home. Indicated by small and big actions happiness according to Ahmed has become measurable. While Armstrong’s main focus point is on the fact that we must all appreciate what is around us as it is important to our eternal happiness.