Question Revision
In class yesterday I had a critical question that dealt with how dependent our economy is on our ecosystems. After some feedback from classmates I thought my question was not as good as I once thought. Instead of sticking to the same topic I chose to move on to an entirely different one. The question that I came up with now is "What is happiness?." Through this question I can see myself being able find out what happiness might mean for me or a different culture. Happiness is different for everyone and that's what I think makes this question so unique and great. For project one I can use happiness through my experiences and tie in an artifact that will symbolize what happiness means to me. Personal experiences might be a certain time when I was happy or certain things that make me happy. For project to I can do some research on what does happiness mean to a different culture or society. Happiness variates from all over the world so to compare and contrast would be a great way to go about this project. For project three I will go further in depth into the word happiness exploring the psychological means of happiness.
Artifact
- Keys to my car
- CD disc for music
- Silverware for food
- Ice cream
- Cell Phone for friends
- Bike
- Backpack for hiking
- pillow for sleep
- dinner table representing family
- Running
For my artifact I am choosing the keys to my car. The keys to my car is truly the key to my happiness. Don't get me wrong its not the keys that make me happy but driving factor with no destination on a beautiful night with the windows down. The high I get from this is no other, I can feel everything stress or worries just leave my body and fly out the window. The fact that when the drive is over I walk out of the car still in the same happy mood, really driving is just a mood fix for me. All of the things that go into driving with no destination just make it awesome I believe. For me its like a math formula and your adding all of the factors and your overall answer is the level of happiness. Factors such as windows being down, wind blowing into your face, wide open spaces driving down the highway, music turned up (preferably the Goo Goo Dolls), one hand on the steering wheel and the other hanging out the window. All of these factors add up to just pure happiness for me. The only down part is that this happiness is really expensive, but I think its worth it. This connects back to my question by doing what makes you happy everyone is different so someone else will have something completely different perhaps opposite from me. Say a person from New York City I bet the last thing they want to do is get in their car in that god forsaken traffic. Why because the midwest has a different culture than from people who live big cities in general.
I think the change in questions was a good one and this new one has lots of potential, especially for project 2. I'm a little worried, though, that for this first project you might very easily end up in the land of the cliche. How will you connect your artifact and your experiences--very specific stories--to the broader world/culture withouthaving to say that "driving makes other happy too"? Maybe it would help to start by doing some free writing that is story-telling about specific events in your life--what does it mean for you to be happy? Then see if a less expected artifact emerges from that writing.
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