For many, happiness is an elusive utopia of the mind, a paradise glimpsed during life's greatest moments but whose glory can never be sustained for longer than ones wedding, or the birth of ones child. For more lasting peace, hobbies have to be tried, vacations experienced, drugs sampled, before the inevitable truth sets in, that life is a grind illuminated by periods of beautiful triumph. Maybe this is life's optimal configuration; after all, is it not discontent that drives us to improve our lives? Is it not discontent that makes the perfect moments all the more special? Or maybe this is nonsense and unhappiness is nothing more than one of misery's many facades. As an inveterate grump, Mr. Weiner endeavors to find the truth in this, his delightful piece of travel journalism.
From Dutch dope-houses to Bhutan's Gross National Happiness, from Iceland's icy darkness to Qatar's desert modernity, Mr. Weiner has embarked on a global search for happiness. Sure, some measure of every population is happy, but what society can claim to be the happiest and why? What social, political and cultural forces best promote societal happiness and are they replicable? Can they be adopted by more discontented societies in an effort to improve the general wellbeing? Yes, the orderliness of northern Europe appears to promote happiness amongst its citizenry, but is this simply an outgrowth of a homogeneous population? If so, is this lack of homogeneity a cause behind why the United States ranks so low on the happiness scale despite its abundance of wealth? Or is wealth a poor indicator of happiness? Mr. Weiner asks all these questions and more as he turns the search for happiness nearly into a spectator sport, journeying from the efficient peace of Switzerland to the decaying grimness of Moldova for answers which, while ultimately elusive, are enlightening and entertaining in the pursuing.
For all its author's droll humor, The Geography of Bliss is a fun romp across the planet in search of something that, it seems, can only be found in the mind. Though the general happiness can be enhanced by inculcating a handful of values into society, chiefly trust of ones fellows, ones government and ones public institutions, all of which appear to help score northern Europe so high on the happiness scale, it is ones own mindset that determines their degree of contentment. This is most evident in Mr. Weiner's stay in tiny Bhutan, a Himalayan kingdom which claims to be the happiest nation on Earth. For after exploring Qatar's rich but cultureless deserts, after philosophizing in the all-too-permissive marijuana shops in Holland, after experiencing the boredom of Swiss monotony, it is this deeply Buddhist nation that Mr. Weiner finds the most enlightening. For while Bhutan is fairly poor relative to the rest of the world, the country's citizens appear to focus less on material pleasures, which are finite and transient, and more on reveling in the natural glory of the world which they have chosen to preserve to the extent their sovereignty allows. This has granted them a serenity, a release from worry and obligation, that troubles so much of the world.
There are no grand revelations here. Mr. Weiner does not discover the key to happiness; far from it. But in the extent to which he explores the roles that culture, trust, faith and our natural environment play in societal happiness, he has touched on some important ideas that may well steer readers towards tips to improving their own happiness. For happiness is not a universal state. It is not a formula that, once cracked, can be applied to everyone. It is an absence of deeply personal anxieties that can only be soothed when their underlying causes have been addressed. An external cure-all cannot be found for a fundamentally internal disquiet.
Deeply entertaining and completely riveting. This is travel writing at its most introspective. (4/5 Stars)x
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