INTERESTING TIMES

 Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
- Kahlil Gibran

SOURCE: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23861354
Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2013 Aug;17(3):248-72. doi: 10.1177/1088868313495593.
Targeting the good target: an integrative review of the characteristics and consequences of being accurately perceived.
Human LJ1, Biesanz JC.
Abstract
A person's judgeability, or the extent to which a person is easy to understand, plays an important role in how accurately a target will be perceived by others. Research on this topic, however, has not been systematic or well-integrated. The current review begins to remedy this by integrating the available research on judgeability from the fields of personality perception, nonverbal communication, and social cognition. Specifically, this review summarizes the characteristics that are likely to promote judgeability and explores its potential consequences. A diverse range of characteristics are identified as predictors of judgeability, all relating to three broader categories: psychological adjustment, social status, and socialization. Furthermore, being judgeable has a variety of potential, largely positive, consequences for the target, leaving good targets poised for greater personal and interpersonal well-being. Nevertheless, many questions on this topic remain and it is crucial for this relatively understudied topic to receive more systematic empirical attention.
KEYWORDS:
accuracy; expressivity; judgeability; person perception; well-being
PMID: 23861354 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust and anger. I have to admit, I have seen all these emotions on the faces of nonhuman primates, and some other mammals as well. Can you name another emotion? Or ten more? And do they break down to just this six??

What I thought of:
Jealousy. Is anger and fear and sadness.
Ecstasy. Is happiness and surprise.
Boredom. Is disgust and sadness. Or not an emotion, but rather a state of disinterest, a lack of focus or flow.
Confusion. Is not an emotion? Is a cognitive state of uncomprehending.

Maybe?

Another person discovers that having too much stuff is a burden on one's life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

In a recent study, the Northwestern University psychologist Galen V. Bodenhausen linked consumption with aberrant, antisocial behavior. Professor Bodenhausen found that “Irrespective of personality, in situations that activate a consumer mind-set, people show the same sorts of problematic patterns in well-being, including negative affect and social disengagement.” Though American consumer activity has increased substantially since the 1950s, happiness levels have flat-lined.

Life
is not measured
by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments
that take our breath away.
-—Maya Angelou

You make a living
by what you earn;
you make a life
by what you give.
--Winston Churchill

7 Common Habits of Unhappy People
Posted By Henrik Edberg On October 5, 2011
http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2011/10/05/7-habits/
( useful article!!: text saved )

He who has health,
has hope;
he who has hope,
has everything.
--Thomas Carlysle

It's a great idea: base our hopes and dreams on a Happiness Index instead of the GDP...