Sunday, July 04, 2010

On the science of happiness...

An excerpt from "Delivering Happiness", by Zappos.com co-founder and financier Tony Hsieh, Chapter 3, p. 78:

Streams of giant green laser beams were shooting throughout the entire warehouse, which was the size of ten football fields. Fog machines helped create a sense of dreamlike surrealism as everyone faced the DJ and moved in unison to the beat of the music. Cars of Red Bull were strewn everywhere, and ultraviolet black lights caused the fluorescent decorations on the walls and ceilings to glow as if they were alien plants transported from another universe.

But it wasn't just about the decorations, or the massiveness of the warehouse. Something else about the scene and moment elicited an emotional response from my entire being that was completely unexpected, and I couldn't really place my finger on exactly what it was or why I felt that way.

I tried to analyze what was different about this scene compared with the nightclub scene that I was more accustomed to. Yes, the decorations and lasers were pretty cool, and yes, this was the largest single room full of people dancing that I had ever seen. But neither of those things explained the feeling of awe that I was experiencing that was leaving me speechless. As someone who is usually known as being the most logical and rational persona in a group, I was surprised to feel myself swept away with an overwhelming sense of spirituality--not in the religious sense, but a sense of deep connection with everyone who was there as well as the rest of universe.

There was a feeling of no judgment, and as I glanced around the warehouse, I saw each person as an individual to be appreciated for just being himself or herself, dancing to the music.

As I tried to analyze what was going on in more detail, I realized that the dancing here was different from the dancing I usually witnessed in nightclubs. Here, there was no sense of self-consciousnesses or feeling that anyone was dancing to be seen dancing, whereas in nightclubs, there was usually the feeling of being on display somehow. In nightclubs, people usually dance with other. Here, it seems that almost everyone was facing the same direction. Everyone was facing the DJ, who was elevated up on a stage, as if he was channeling his energy to the crowd. It almost felt like everyone was worshiping the DJ.

The entire room felt as if one massive, united tribe of thousands of people, and the DJ was the tribal leader of the group. People weren't dancing to the music so much as the music seemed like it was simply moving through everyone. The steady wordless electronic beats were the unifying heartbeats that synchronized the crowd. It was as if the existence of individual consciousness had disappeared and been replaced by a single unifying group consciousness, the same way a flock of birds might seem like a single entity instead of a collection of individual birds. Everyone in the warehouse had a shared purpose. We were all contributors to the collective rave experience.

I didn't know it at the time, but ten years later I would learn that research from the field of the science of happiness would confirm that the combination of physical synchrony with other humans and being part of something bigger than oneself (and thus losing momentarily a sense of self) leads to a greater sense of happiness, and that the rave scene was simply the modern-day version of similar experiences that humans have been having for tens of thousands of years.

In the moment though, I felt a sense of experiential epiphany. It swept through my entire being. I n that instant, I suddenly understood the appeal of the techno music. I couldn't simply listen to it the way I listened to music on the radio. I had to let if flow through me in the context of a mind-set that I hadn't really experienced until just now. It was like someone had bestowed on me the Rosetta Stone of techno music, and no amount of verbal explanation would have helped me understand it. I had to experience it for myself.

And in that one instant, I did. I had awakened. I had been transformed. Finally, after all these year, I understood what the music was all about.

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