Dr Bronwyn Tarr: How to live a happy life | Hacker News Reader

Dr Bronwyn Tarr: How to live a happy life

ox.ac.uk

57 pointsbenbreen30 comments

This makes me wish there was a dating app which could match me with people based on the similarity of the music we listen to. Just yesterday I was driving to work rocking out to some Spanish punk rock and thinking that if I could just find a partner who also listens to Spanish punk rock we'd probably have a lot more in common than any of the people I meet though existing dating apps.

Edit: There is such an app. It's called Tastebuds. Downloading it now to check it out.

Edit: Ok, the app sucks. It doesn't match you with people based on your music, it just lets you add music you like to your profile.

Sharing music tastes is about as important as sharing hair colour.

Written by somebody who likely has a very bland, unadventurous taste in music.

Or a very exciting, adventurous taste in hair color

Not been on Tinder in a while, but a year ago there was definitely the option to add a 'favourite track' to your profile, as an extra bit of information on top of your Facebook likes.

Tastebuds.fm did match based on music similarities, last time I checked. Although it was a bit shallow as it only matched based on number of artists shared. I think better matching would also take diversity of tastes into account and how much importance you place on certain artists. It does have a feature to tag 6? artists as favorites, but that's it.

Bronwyn Tarr's research on synchrony is fascinating. See e.g. her paper on silent disco dancing. I speculate that good teamwork programming may be activating related areas of the mind. I know coders who develop together can achieve a kind of flow, a synchrony of purpose. Can these coders gain the health benefits of bonding and endorphins?

See her publications https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/bronwyn-tarr

"[W]e propose that synchrony might act as direct means to encourage group cohesion by causing the release of neurohormones that influence social bonding. By acting on ancient neurochemical bonding mechanisms, synchrony can act as a primal and direct social bonding agent, and this might explain its recurrence throughout diverse human cultures and contexts (e.g. dance, prayer, marching, music-making)."

I wonder if she's ever looked at rowing (she should have enough guinea pigs in Oxford). Nothing else I've done in life has come close to the bonding I've felt after a hard season's competition in a rowing crew, the epitome of synchrony.

Rowing is explicitly mentioned in the article.

Indeed. Apologies, I didn't make it that far down.

There have been occasions in very coherent crews when I have felt outside my own body and not in control of it, as if the whole crew was being driven by a single external force.

MARTIAL, the things that do attain The happy life be these, I find:— The richesse left, not got with pain; The fruitful ground, the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife; No charge of rule, nor governance; Without disease, the healthful life; The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no delicate fare; True wisdom join'd with simpleness; The night dischargèd of all care, Where wine the wit may not oppress.

The faithful wife, without debate; Such sleeps as may beguile the night: Contented with thine own estate Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.

— Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. 1516–47, translated from Martial's Epigrams (Born 38 AD).

Ah yes. The one stop shop to a happy life.

We are quite a finnicky species and trying to shoehorn everyone into the same mold is probably not a recipe for great happiness.

Just accept that people are different, you won't find happiness following someone else's rulebook and do the things that matter to you. Accept those things as your source of happiness.

If your sources of happiness are not compatible with society in general do them where you can enjoy them on your own or with a group of likeminded peers.

Do not be concerned about how unique you are. Embrace it.

If you are not unique embrace that too.

Focus on what it is that you really want to do.

Life will be over soon enough.

Stop chasing your happiness and live life. Happiness will follow :)

So instead of listening to a Doctor from Oxford University, who has obviously studied this extensively, we should listen to you?

Why not? He seems a bit happier than the Doc.

In all seriousness, critique the ideas, not the source.

If that's what makes you happy.

You should listen to yourself, maybe for you that means listening to someone else or maybe it doesn't.

I like mountain biking, Jeffrey Dahmer liked munching on people's legs. Diff strokes for diff folks.

> "Focus on what it is that you really want to do."

The older I'm getting the more it seems like this is the true fountain of life. Something that will keep you going no matter what happens in your life and wake you up with bright eyes in the morning.

Bronwyn is a beautiful Welsh name.

Don't be born working class, don't take student loans, if you want to be happy you have to exploit other people cause it's a dog eat dog would be exploited or exploit kind of world with no love or caring or community

What a negative view of life...

Perhaps, but what if it is accurate? It's been said that religion is opium for the masses. Deluding yourself might make you feel good but you're still suffering.

As I type this the following is on the front page: 'Body Brokers' Get Kickbacks to Lure People with Addictions to Bad Rehab.

The last part is not accurate for me

it was said by Marx, who had his own delusions that have led to the deaths many many people. I don't think we as a species are capable of being 100% rational.

The quote with some context:

Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun

We all suffer. Happiness does not end suffering, it merely affects how we process it, how we perceive it.

It's interesting you bring up "feeling good". That is about pleasure, about external stimuli. Happiness is fulfillment within ourself.

Which means it has not much to do with monetary status. Yes, money affords you comfort and pleasure, and those are nice things to have. It does not afford you happiness. To put it into a Tony Robbins quote: "Having money doesn't mean you don't have problems. It just means you get to roll up to your problems in a limo"

And "a world with no love or caring or community" - that is, ultimately, our own choice. We can choose to put love in the world, or we can withhold it. We can choose to care about other people. We can build a community.

It won't be provided to us - happiness, and love, and caring, require all of us to work for their existence.

When your only point of reference is the events from your own life almost any strategy can seem rational.

It depends where you live. There are many places in the world where you study for free, have free health coverage and don't need to be a millionaire to live well.

So you read the title on HN and decided to post this comment which basically has no relation with the actual article?

Though to address your comment:

Keep in mind, some are happy to be the working class, know what they have to do between 9-5 because somebody told them to do that.

Some enjoy being a student, think their student years are the best years of their life. Why is that not worth a loan?

Some people could be happy exploiting others, some actually like it when they get exploited. (there are freaky people ont his planet; don't judge).

Some people are happy when others care for them, others are happy when they can care for others.

Happiness one can only decide for themselves; and the grass is always greener at the house next-door....

There is caring. People care enough about your comment to debate it. There is community - that's what HN is, a community of people. Some you hate, some you love, and many you just exist with, like any other community.

But being right here, you are part of a community that does care about what you have to say. A community that - in the sense of Agape - loves you.

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