It’s after Labor Day in the US, where virtually every child of age is back in school, starting a new grade and most working adults just enjoyed an extended weekend. No doubt there were hundreds of thousands of barbecues burning across the nation, millions of beers consumed, parades, parties and many people striving to eek out a few extra hours of morning sleep while luxuriating in the rare Monday off. But by Tuesday morning, Wednesday at the latest, almost every American family was back to the grind.

When we talk about the business of living, about engaging in life, the emphasis is on participation. The act of being. But what is the point of being present if we are not able to grapple with the simple element of happiness? After all, as dire as life might seem, happiness is the one thing that can truly give it purpose.

The Happiness Ride

My friend, David Baumgarten, is exploring the concept of happiness in a documentary project called The Happiness Ride, for which he is about to hit the road armed with a video camera and his two-wheeled motorized steed. A few months ago he had contacted me about participating and I was glad to offer my thoughts on the questions he sent me (which are available on the project’s site for your viewing pleasure). I’m not sure if he was overjoyed at the length of my responses, but apparently, I was so tickled by the request that I couldn’t stick within the suggested 60-second response limit. My mirth simply — oh, hell, now it just looks like I’m sitting here with a Thesaurus, and if I keep going like this I will need one. Let’s just say that I was happy to oblige, but it turned out I had a bit more to say on the subject.

Here are several of the videos that I contributed. (They are shown here as raw footage, unedited and spontaneous responses to the questions that were presented to me.) All of my responses are available on the project’s YouTube Channel; visitors are encouraged to upload their own responses to ten different questions on the project’s main site.

There are more of these available on thehappinessride.com and on the YouTube channel, and many more perspectives from other people about what they believe happiness means.

Exploring Happiness, or Joy, or whatever name you choose to give it, should be an essential task for each of us. Whether or not we consider ourselves to be “happy,” we should at least understand what that means to each of us, whether we have been honest with ourselves (and our loved ones) about this and also where we might want to adjust our perspective or affect changes in our routine or simply come to a place of acceptance and peace. In watching these videos, it reminds me that people’s concepts of Happiness are as diverse as their concepts of beauty. There is no right or wrong way to approach these subjects, except insofar as it is wrong to never approach them.

And now I will leave you with this singular approach, in honor of the Paralympics that will begin in just over an hour: a trailer produced to publicize the games with the simple message of “yes, I can.” There is little in this world that is happier than that.