Do Social Interactions Make Us Happier

The other night, I was laying with my 4-year-old just after reading a goodnight story.

I thought about the day she would have the next day. She'd wake up when she wanted, eat breakfast, play, eat lunch, play, eat dinner, play, watch some TV, have dad read to her, go to bed.

It's a pretty nice life. It will get hectic in a few years when she has crushes, enemies, etc.

But it made me wonder? Do these kinds of social interactions (i.e., finding friends) actually make out lives better?

1840s Connection I Intended to Make

As I wrote on Sunday, I noticed a connection between the 1840s writings on Henry David Thoreau in Walden and Karl Marx in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

However, as I searched back through Thoreau's first chapter, I failed to find what I thought that I remembered. When I found some link in the writings, I wrote about it, and attributed the mismatch to faulty memory. I finally found the intended paragraphs yesterday afternoon.

Thoreau wrote:

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluous course labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day to day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine (pp. 6-7).

Marx wrote:

In the first place, the raising of wages gives rise to overwork among the workers. The more they wish to earn, the more must they sacrifice their time and carry out slave-labor, in the service of avarice completely losing all their freedom, thereby they shorten their lives (p. 22, emphasis original).

If you have never read Walden, I recommend it with the highest praise that I can give. The first chapter, titled Economy, and the final conclusions contain some of the most accurate perceptions of the human condition ever observed.

A lot of people have critiqued "keeping up with the Jonses" and other problems of avarice. Yet Thoreau's words still ring true a century and a half later. Why do we live to work when we should work only to live? Read Walden, and you likely will never think about this question the same again.

This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the lift of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once (p. 57).

No Child Ever Dreams of Growing Up Effective

A photo of Blue Lagoon, near the Bahamas, some time in the late 1980s. Thanks to my dad for finding the picture for me. Sadly, I read today that due to a massive storm in 1991, the island no longer looks like this.

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I often think of the book title, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

I've never actually read the book, mind you. Perhaps that is why I'm not as effective as I could be. But the book makes me think: Is life actually about being effective?

Look at it this way: You're born and then sometime later you die. Is the meaning of life really about making those times in the middle effective?

Closer to the dawn of human existence, we had to spend most of our waking hours looking for food. If you weren't effective, you died.

Along the way, we've made some progress. Well, in terms of food production, we have made some progress.

It no longer takes all day just to stave off death from starvation. When I drive through Kansas, I occasionally see a sign that reads, "The average Kansas farmer feeds 23 people [exact number escapes memory] and YOU!"

So the question becomes: "What are the 24 of us doing with our spare time since we're not farming?"

I mean, we could sit around Blue Lagoon Island soaking up the sun and waves. Really, I've been there. It beats whatever you are going to do today. By a lot.

But we don't do that. And that fascinates me.

We live in a modern society. We work 5 days a week and relax for 2. Think of the 1980s Loverboy song lyrics, Everybody's working for the weekend. We work for the weekend as if the entire notion of a weekend were not just a human creation.

And it's not to eat ... of even for shelter. We work and work and work to consume. Gadgets. Toys. Joneses with whom to be kept up.

And somehow along the way, I think that we missed the point. I have the distinct feeling that we're all rushing around so much, that in essence, we're just rushing around to our own deaths.

Is the meaning of life really "effectiveness?" Is it really "time management?"

Somehow that just feels wrong to me.

And the thing is, it seems pretty easy not to question it. It's the received view.

And collectivism might work pretty well at some small monastery in Tibet, but it has not proven particularly joyous on a large scale. So are we doomed to this fate simply because there happen to be 6 billion of us tromping around? After the industrial revolution and the information society, are there no go backs?

I don't pretend to have any answers. And perhaps these are just the miscellaneous of ramblings of someone who grew up going to a private school in the middle of the Material Girl 1980s. When one of your friends gets a BMW for their 14th birthday [not a typo], it does tend to color your view of reality.

In the end, I think back to that Kansas farm sign. It seems perhaps that the 24 of us are not making very good choices what to do with our days.

There should be a lot more reading by the pool.

Career Shifting to West Texas

I firmly believe that there are a handful of moments that define one's life. I have written about defining moments here before.

This spring marked another important defining moment. I have an excellent rapport with my school's director, Carroll Glynn, and she has given me every possible resource to succeed as an academic. However, since I moved to Columbus, I have realized how difficult it is to be 1,700 miles from one's family. This is especially true when one's parents begin to have health problems.

So I started looking at job opportunities in the Southwest. One program really stood out: the new College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech University. They appear to have an ideal blueprint on how to build a program.

Within the past two years, the program has become a stand-alone college, and it has developed a Ph.D. program. More importantly -- to me -- is that Tech has an extremely impressive, collegial faculty. Their growth has led to an infusion of young talent, and it is a very exciting place to be. But it is a fun place to be.

I had a great time in Lubbock during my interview, and I am lucky to have been offered a position in the soon-to-be department of advertising. I will have a great dean, a well respected department head, and wonderful colleagues. It is an ideal situation for a young scholar.

More importantly, it is going to be fun to recruit people to West Texas. It may sound like the end of the Earth to some folks, but it's a great place to study mass communications. Lubbock is a city of about a quarter million, and the major markets of Dallas and Houston are a short flight away. With the faculty in place at Tech, I believe our Ph.D. students quickly will be welcomed as faculty members at the "old guard" programs.

It is difficult to leave OSU, with its own blend of excitement and growth. However, the chance to be a 5 1/2 hour car ride from home and just one hour from the New Mexico border was just too much of a pull. Kids who grow up in New Mexico don't call it "The Land of Entrapment" for nothing.

Finally, this move completes my retracing of coach Bob Knight's steps. He earned his degree and played college ball at OSU (I'm here), won three national titles at Indiana (my Ph.D. graduation ceremony was just under those championship banners), and he now coaches at Tech (is it too early to order season tickets?).