Is happiness an inside job or does it more depend upon our geographic location? Eric Weiner in his book The Geography of Bliss. He has travelled around the world looking for the places where people are purportedly happy. The Swiss claim to be happy but Weiner finds them boring. He travels to Bhutan where they have a Gross National Happiness index and the people mostly claim to be happy but he is not. Right now, in my reading, we're in Iceland where everyone is purportedly happy again. Is it the booze? Is it the isolation from society? Is that they're in love with the language? (I doubt it's the weather myself). What is it that makes these people happy.

Weiner spends a little time explaining that the Icelandic people love their language and that it is pure from Viking times. They invent words for things that have been invented since Viking times - their own words - they don't bastardize their language with pigeon English or pigeon anything else. But does that make them a happy people?

I love language. I love the spoken word and the written word. I love to read fiction and non-fiction. I love poetry (both reading it and listening to it). I love dialogue, good conversation. I love language. But does it make me a happy person? No. I'm happy when I'm reading something I enjoy. I'm happy having a good conversation. But, I'm not a naturally happy person.

I'm happy at the beach. I love the weather down here much more than that of upstate New York or New Jersey. I love the number of sunny days we get here. I have SADD and the winters in upstate I found more depressing even back in the days when I got out and did winter hiking which made me happy for that time and made it possible for me to function in the winter. So the change in climate has added to my happiness index. However, I love the culture in the northeast and miss that terribly. I have good friends here but really miss my "community" in New York.
I'm happy that Carol's health is better than it was when we were in New York.

I'm happy that I don't have to struggle to my job everyday all winter long. I'm happy that we can sit at the beach whenever we want to. I'm most happy painting.

Are we a happier people along the coast of South Carolina? Right!