Hector and The Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord, made into a pathetic motion picture, otherwise about as lame as the original material https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2023/02/52-out-of-100-for-hector-and-search-for.html - 8 out of 10

 

Hector and The Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord, made into a pathetic motion picture, otherwise about as lame as the original material https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2023/02/52-out-of-100-for-hector-and-search-for.html

8 out of 10

 

 

I have felt like destroying the book and the film right there, at the start, albeit we should climb down from that attempt at foolishly jesting and talk about the merits of the admittedly rather silly book – which I have received from an old friend, old friend in that we have known each other for about four decades, and thus we are not that tender anymore (even if he does have an impressive night life, he comes back from night clubs when I wake up and prepare to go to the World Class [what a joke that is, they have chosen a name that implies a high level of service, when what they have is terrible and going down] Downtown) and as for friends…well, if he gives me this kind of gift, then he must think me rather slow

 

‘be a merit finder, not a fault finder’ says the Harvard Professor Tal Ben-Shahar, of positive psychology fame, a course that is the most popular in the history of that Ivy League institution, whose lectures you can find on YouTube http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/choose-life-you-want-by-tal-ben-shahar.html and we should certainly go down that path (or I should better say up that road) and first say that even in this rather simplistic form, the search for Happiness is worthwhile and needs to be commended

Those who are positive, optimistic live longer, more successful private and professional lives, they get sick less often, and when they fall ill, they stay so for a shorter time than the negative ones, therefore there are multiple benefits, that have been confirmed by thousands (or maybe hundreds of thousands by now) of tests and metastudies, one of which would center on the…nuns of the Notre Dame, that have been part of research that looked at their diaries and discovered that the ones that were positive in their notes would live on average nine years more than their neutral comrades http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/02/how-full-is-your-bucket-by-tom-rath.html and we can add that negativity kills

 

I now look back at a note on How Full Is Your Bucket by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton and find the experience of the Korean War and how devastating the techniques used there have been, and then the attitude at my own company (well, the small one, in which I have 14% and not much say into how it is organized, the position of the director, who had told us some seven or more years ago that he would double the profits, do all sorts of miracles that never happened in the meantime) where I was told some twenty years back, when I have mentioned positivity and more energy, smiles, that ‘those people work over here, they can ‘be happy’ and the implied message was that I had clearly been rather thick, not to get that…

Hector is a psychiatrist and decides to look for happiness, just as the title makes clear, thinking himself something of a fraud, if he does not help his clients aka patients to get better, and he does not know much or more about this essential problem - “Happiness [Eudaimonia] is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence” –Aristotle…and he may have said something like ‘while we are not happy, we look for happiness, and we get there, we have succeeded’ or maybe just words to that effect, though now that I have put this down, I am sure it is not anywhere near…the latter part, the Eudaimonia quote is correct and indeed, we try to be happy, though actively looking for it seems to be just the wrong way, according to our own luminary, Andrei Plesu…

 

Hector starts by travelling to…China, which in itself looks like the epitome of the ‘other place’, the realm where you should try finding the essence of unhappiness, seeing as it is a tyranny, led by a fellow that has recently amassed even more power (absurd in itself, given that the commies are dictators, why on earth would you ask for even more than the already massive force you have) and we know about this – come to think of it, Hector should have asked me about happiness in a tyranny http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html I have taken part in the revolution that took down Ceausescu and the link is to the passage in Newsweek that reveals some of my contribution

The shrink finds some truths or one could say platitudes – if one is jesting, or just negative and mean – on his quest, such as ‘many people think happiness comes from more money or more power’ and indeed, studies with lottery winners, among others, have found that getting one million dollars or more does boost the wellbeing, but only for a few months, after which the subjects return to their base level of happiness – some will protest and say they just do not how to spend it, and there may have been a Lexus ad playing on that theme, as in if you get a Lexus, then you have really made the smart move…

 

‘Happiness is being with people you love’ and then he explains unhappiness as being separated from those, which is confirmed by the often mentioned research, that shows this is what the happiest have in common ‘strong, good relations with family and friends’ – a very weak point for yours truly, the one that surely justifies my frequent descents into lamentations (just like here) and moaning…it is the spouse, who takes shots at me daily (so far, given that this is not Red America, the shots are not literal, just metaphorical, albeit there has been the odd scratch and so on) on all sorts of matters, determined by my decrepitude, the appearance of a beggar that I have, the fact that I spend only about two hours every day cleaning after the macaws and not a full ten hours on the bathroom, my room (we have not shared a bed or anything except some common space in this too large abode) the garden and so much more…

She has brought in five borzoi (5) and a mongrel, and these are officially classified as ‘giant breed dogs, which means the equivalent of about twelve, maybe fifteen ‘common’ ones, and she calls me crazy, which I certainly was to participate in that mad scheme, and even take them out in the morning for years – not anymore, there is just one left, very old, sick and awfully smelly (but hey, I am the stinking old fart), and even taking him out at the corner is a curse, given that one of the loathsome buffoons that live around here is often there to show his contempt (the fucking moron abuses the rules, but hey, that is smart, and the spouse is only upset of that kind of abuse when it affect her, anyone doing harm to her husband is to be praised, and the opposite when it touches her)…ergo, to end this optimistic, grateful finale on a high note, be merry and (do not) multiply http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world