#2: Happiness Moves Me

In 2014, I wrote my thesis: Creatures With Creations And Their Segregation Of Joy'. On LinkedIn I will upload the 7 articles this thesis is build up with. Every Image is one experiment executed along the thesis writing.

2. Happiness Moves Me

If there is one thing all humans share, it’s probably the aim for having a better life. Whether for the family, nation, the afterlife or myself: the decisions we make are mainly driven by an attempt to have it better. I assume that ‘better' is related to a positive emotional state. For a Buddhist monk, happiness can exist in being completely in control of the ego. For a youngster happiness could be receiving a lot of recognition from attractive people of the preferred sexes. Perhaps happiness is not interesting as a real psychological state of mind, but more as a projection of the ideal self. How does the projection of the ideal self relate to creations? For illustrating what I consider as the major relation, I use this quote of French 19th century writer, Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle)

“La beaute n’est que la promesse du bonheur” (De L’Amour, 1822)

(“Beauty is nothing other than a promise for happiness.”) 

A product promises happiness. I want to buy something because I think I will need that for having a slightly better life. Preferring one product above one other is related to how the product physically communicates itself. Apart from physical beauty, the promise derives more from the beauty of the message related to that product. Even when I buy the cheapest shittiest car on the market, my message is: ‘I don’t care about status’. Particularly that car has a value to me when I want people to believe I just don’t give a damn. A good example is the preference of Pope Franciscus who decided to drive a cheap Ford Focus instead of a Mercedes. Choosing that car made him able to project his sober ideal self, therewith making him slightly more happy.

I think there are other ways of generating happiness with design instead of distinguishing one product from another. Psychological problems occur 50% less with creatures who are sporting frequently. Creatures who move frequently tend to recover 1,5 times faster from their depression in comparison with creatures who don’t ‘sport’ often.

In 1993 dr. Hotamisligil discovered that white fat produces anti-inflammatory agents(1). When the immune system is active, the fat consumes more glucose than the muscles. When the body is passive, there is less information which needs to be sent from the body to the brain, allowing relatively a lot of information from the white fat to be processed by the brain.

Movement takes away a part of the energy that would otherwise go to the white fat’s immune system. Simplifying this situation: when the body doesn’t move, the brain is active with preventing inflammation, perceiving the body to be in ‘pain’.

The notion of pain is reduced when the muscles move; taking over nerve signals from the white fat. Because the mind perceives fewer signals of the fat/infection and more signals from the muscles, we experience less pain. Perhaps we can conclude movement allows us to be in a more neutral state, but can movement also make us feel more happy?

Scientist Siri Leknes discovered that opiates (components in the brain which function as pain killers) are generated in the brain when dopamine (brain component which is essential for experiencing happiness) is in the synapses (2) (component to communicate signals between nerves and specific cells in the body). The synapses are creating dopamine when they have to change their communication structure. This process takes place when we are learning to make movements. Physically challenging ourselves contributes to the state of happiness, not to be confused by overloading the muscles with force.

If I - as a creator - really want to contribute to the positive mental state of creatures, I have to wonder how my creations facilitate movement.

Image: Skin Deformation study (film), October 2013

When you have an exoskeleton chair, the body has a certain friction with the chair as well. To understand what parts of the skin deform less than others, Marija Puipaite and Lodovica Guarnieri covered my skin with liquid clay. When it dried the clay cracked, displaying highly deforming skin parts and areas of the body which deform less.

Sources:

1. Hotamisligil, G.S.; Shargill, N.S.; Spiegelman, B.M. (1993). Science 1 January 1993: Vol. 259 no. 5091 pp. 87-91. Boston, AAAS

2. Leknes, T.; Tracy, I. (2008). Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 314-320 (April 2008). Oxford, NPG