"...happiness in life is predominantly sought in the enjoyment of beauty, wherever beauty presents itself to our senses and our judgment-the beauty of human forms and gestures, of natural objects and landscapes and of artistic and even scientific creations....Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it" (33).
I am currently in a positive psychology class that focuses on what makes people happy. The idea of positive psychology is fairly recent, but Freud seems to have thought a lot about the topic. Most recently, our class took a VIA assessment about our top five strengths. The assessment was done online and is based on the notion that each human exerts certain strengths more than others. My top five strengths are gratitude, generosity and kindness, curiosity about the world, perspective, and appreciation of beauty. I never really thought about what an impact beauty played in my life before taking the test, but after getting my assessment back I realized just how much emphasis I place on the beauty in the world around me. I really do tend to find happiness in a cloudless sky or a pretty flower. My friends sometimes make fun of me for my observations, but I definitely agree with Freud when he explains the importance of recognizing the beautiful things in life when trying to attain happiness.
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2 comments:
Is that a free public test? Can you post a link to it? It would be fun if we could all take it!
I nominate this post for POW. It was interesting how you related the core text to what you are doing in psychology class, and talked about the online test. Although I am often hesitant to express my thoughts out loud, I do enjoy beauty in natural objects and landscapes everyday.
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