Some of the latest empirical research on the relationship between happiness and creativity add support to the impact of happiness on creativity. Happiness as it turns out, creates a larger possibility space, an inclusion of new insights. Misery, often romanticized as key to creativity, narrows the focus of attention and constricts the possibility space.

The results suggest that an upbeat mood makes people more receptive to information of all kinds, says psychologist Adam Anderson, co-author of the study published online by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. “With positive mood, you actually get more access to things you would normally ignore,” he says. “Instead of looking through a porthole, you have a landscape or panoramic view of the world.”

(via Happiness: Good for Creativity, Bad for Single-Minded Focus: Scientific American)

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Some nights unparallel others in narrative grace. The decision to be car-free not only liberates a carbon footprint but invites accidental conversations that would never be possible ambulating in solitary transport.

Tonight’s commute produced two amazing stories, one from and one to the train, both of which would rival anything NPR could approximate.

The former story was from a cab driver who loses his sight, becomes homeless and gets back on his feet with the improbable generosity of a city cop who helps him get surgery and return to his passion as a taxi driver.

The latter was from a friend who narrates the story of her great-grandmother who was one of Hemmingway’s lovers in the late ‘40s whose advice is simple: “It’s OK to sleep with a man, but not to go to breakfast with him. People talk.”

Life s a rich tapestry of stories for those who embrace the space of accidental conversations.

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The new short film, Thinking Cities, reminds us that in the next two generations, a million people a month will move or be born into cities worldwide. In this timeframe, there will be over 6 million people in cities, many of which do not have at this point the physical, technical, social, political, and economic infrastructures to support happy cities.

The good news is that cities have the brains and heart they need to design themselves into a sustainable future. We must shift to engaging this talent now.

“There’s an enormous realization of the importance of cities. That is true for business, it’s true for government, it’s true for civil society.” So says one of the speakers in Thinking Cities (made by Ericsson as part of their Networked Society series), which you can watch above. As Geoffrey West, a scientist who studies cities, notes in the film, cities are the cause of many of the world’s problems, but are also hubs of innovation that are going to drive the solutions.

Thinking Cities features thought leaders like West, a physicist and professor at Santa Fe Institute; Mathieu Lefevre of New Cities Foundation; and Carlo Ratti, Director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab speaking on what the city means for the future while we take a tour of some of the most innovative smart city projects–from tracking trash to tagging potholes–that are going on in the world today.

Take a look. As one city evangelist says: “The city’s role is to make as easy as possible for people … to live in a smart and sustainable way.” They also tend to make their residents happier. For these and countless other reasons enumerated in the video, cities are the living area of the future. Now it’s time to make them worth the hype.

(via Watch A Fascinating Short Film On How Cities Will Drive Global Change | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation)

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Sheikha Al Mayassa is the young and progressive force behind Qatar’s mission to become the Middle East’s foremost destination for the arts and culture.

As chairperson of the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA), she engages the rich history of her country to drive education and cross-cultural interaction today.

(via Sheikha Al Mayassa | Profile on TED.com)

In her recent TED talk, she suggests that as the world culture flattens into greater coherence and connectivity, globalization will inspire more people to use localization to sustain unique identities. From this perspective, people seek uniqueness more when everyone becomes more alike.

This means that embracing one’s rich cultural traditions will become a vibrant means toward the expression of uniqueness. How is this a call for novel synergies and a welcome validation of the profound value of differences that give richness to greater common grounds?

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Conversations this week centered on what can be termed the Deficiency Industry. This is the sector of non-profit and profit enterprises whose growth specifically depends on the growth of human suffering and dysfunction.

This is the psychiatric and behavioral health sectors, medicine and pharmaceuticals, and social programs for people disabled with symptoms of social breakdown and struggles.

How we define “growth” in these sectors must undergo radical redefinitions in communities seeking the decline in needs for their services and products. How would communities come together to demand as such?

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Two of the most ancient and profound design principles are the principles of feminine and masculine.

When it comes to the idea of growth, many profit and non-profit businesses continue to labor along stereotyped masculine principles, such as, “bigger is better.” In this paradigm, growth and size are equated, and the more feminine sides of quality and connection are simply handmaids to patriarchal priorities.

This underlies the allure of big box stores, big agriculture, big industry, and big anything. It’s the principle of colonistic centralization.

On the macro scale, big is a highly effective strategy for constraining the scale of entrepreneurship especially in so-called capitalist markets. These days, in some sectors, we are seeing more entrepreneurial activities in communist markets than in many capitalist markets.

So this raises profound shifts in questions about design. Who gains and loses most in masculine dominated design of businesses and markets and what would these look like instead shaped by more presence of feminine design principles?

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One of the more interesting conundrums puzzling the civic space is identifying happiness indicators.

These are the narratives demonstrating gains in happiness.

The civic space is the dynamic field of connections, events, and pattern languages that invite a sense of aliveness.

In the happiness indicators conversation, we’re interested in what facilitates the five core practices of happiness: appreciation, generosity, interest, lightness, and simple.

What makes these more possible? Think: events where people come together in planned and accidental conversations, spaces we savor, opportunities for random acts of kindness and sharing, places where people can discover new people and places and things, interactions where smiles emerge and life is more easy than hard.

Every single thing that happens in the commons makes happiness more or less possible. It’s a design question and intention. In organizations and communities, it’s losing faith in the power of the symbols of happiness and going directly to creating and co-creating authentic experiences of happiness in each present moment given to us.

The symbols of happiness are the “things” to be consumed that are “supposed to” bring happiness. Authentic happiness is the practice of happiness make possible. It is happiness not postponed to earned or entitled consumption, but the immediacy of happiness experienced and expressed.

Happy are those whose happiness is present. This is the meaning of happiness indicators. And a profound shift at that.

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ONAGAWA, Japan — At age 39, Yoshiaki Suda, the new mayor of this town that was destroyed by last March’s tsunami, oversees a community where the votes, money and influence lie among its large population of graying residents. But for Onagawa to have a future, he must rebuild it in such a way as to make it attractive to those of his generation and younger.

(via Amid Japan Reconstruction, Generational Rift Opens - NYTimes.com

Here in post-tsunami Japan, decimated small fishing villages suffer generational divides on the question of restorative investments or consolidations. The younger generation favors the efficiencies of consolidations and the elders favor expensive and ultimately less sustainable lower-ground restorations. The Japanese government has delegated decisions to local levels.

We need to get right this new question about the future of small sea villages given the fact that climate change in the next ten years is likely to displace countless numbers of these villages. Here in the States, we have parallel issues in shrinking urban population centers that leave in their wake unsustainable neighborhoods.

It is a wicked multidimensional and non-linear problem of cultures, traditions, care for the elderly, public policy, budget efficiencies, and care for the next generation and the parents raising it.

In it’s most profound sense, it is a problem whose roots are in the fact that bringing people together in community sustainably and intentionally is a new sociology in many parts of the world. Those of us who design engagement in change have enormous responsibility inviting and convening these conversations.

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According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2/3 of the US counties most dependent on government aid voted for the Republican Party that dedicates itself to the end of the curse of economic entitlement.

It’s a curious political paradox: people who morally oppose their own benefit. A shameless exercise in narcissistic duplicity: I deserve the advantage of the commons but everyone else should be denied the claim.

It is a call for a most rare and politically hot potato phenomenon: authentic compassion.

Seriously. This is the same lack of compassion that feeds the greed that denigrates human dignity for the gains of the few at the costs of the many.

May all beings awaken. May all beings know compassion.

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Today is World Happy Day, a day invented around the debut of a Roko Belic film, “Happy.” It’s a global look at the fashionably important positive psychology movement, doing a good job of blending research and stories into a compelling message.

I watched the film with a group of happiness devotees who drew from the film a kaleidoscopic validation of inspiration. Many were moved by the pieces on happy people who live in simple poverty, who have survived horrific tragedies, and who have as much happiness if not more than those on the planet who have more good fortune than anyone.

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Over the past two generations in the US, the gap between high and low income children has doubled the significantly shrinking gap between black and white students.

This comes at a significant social and economic cost and creates the unfortunate and invalid assumption that this is an economic rather than social issue.

James J. Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago, argues that parenting matters as much as, if not more than, income in forming a child’s cognitive ability and personality, particularly in the years before children start school.

“Early life conditions and how children are stimulated play a very important role,” he said. “The danger is we will revert back to the mindset of the war on poverty, when poverty was just a matter of income, and giving families more would improve the prospects of their children. If people conclude that, it’s a mistake.”

Meredith Phillips, an associate professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, used survey data to show that affluent children spend 1,300 more hours than low-income children before age 6 in places other than their homes, their day care centers, or schools (anywhere from museums to shopping malls). By the time high-income children start school, they have spent about 400 hours more than poor children in literacy activities, she found.

(via Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show - NYTimes.com)

This creates a simple equation: low income children close the gap with an average of one more hour a day before school being exposed to outside the home and literacy activities. It’s an ambitious albeit actionable proposition with huge implications.

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Mindful eating is not a diet, or about giving up anything at all. It’s about experiencing food more intensely — especially the pleasure of it. You can eat a cheeseburger mindfully, if you wish. You might enjoy it a lot more. Or you might decide, halfway through, that your body has had enough. Or that it really needs some salad.

(via Mindful Eating as Way to Fight Bingeing - NYTimes.com)

Steeped in the Buddhist tradition, mindful eating is paying attention to savoring the food and being grateful for all who contributed to the food we receive.

The research indicates that mindful eating increases happiness and decreases the amounts required for satisfaction. This has large implications (pun intended) for the obesity crisis not plaguing “developed” nations.

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I met a guy in Seoul last week whose team is an incredible pastiche of talent and spirit. Among the core features of his prime hiring strategy: asking people to sing.

His thesis is simple. People who belt out any song, even poorly, has faith in their voice and generosity of spirit. It’s a quirky approach, and works. And worth more than the time and dollar costs of convoluted personality tests. Look for more of that into the future.

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Canada has displaced the US as the constitutional superpower. This is the position earned by the country with the constitution that inspires most of the new constitution developments and revisions. A couple of generations ago the US was the model, but no more. For example, the Second Amendment giving citizens the right to “bear arms” is only featured in two other national documents.

Some interesting historical and contemporary insights:

In a television interview during a visit to Egypt last week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court seemed to agree. “I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” she said. She recommended, instead, the South African Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the European Convention on Human Rights.

The rights guaranteed by the American Constitution are parsimonious by international standards, and they are frozen in amber. As Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 in “Our Undemocratic Constitution,” “the U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any constitution currently existing in the world today.” (Yugoslavia used to hold that title, but Yugoslavia did not work out.)

Other nations routinely trade in their constitutions wholesale, replacing them on average every 19 years. By odd coincidence, Thomas Jefferson, in a 1789 letter to James Madison, once said that every constitution “naturally expires at the end of 19 years” because “the earth belongs always to the living generation.” These days, the overlap between the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and those most popular around the world is spotty.

‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World - NYTimes.com

So this story is not a call for better defending one of the most irrelevant constitutions around. It is a call for quite the opposite.

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Those of us who follow trends in ecological material reuse are increasingly not surprised by the next new thing. Now it’s repurposing vehicle doors for green home design.

Recent data suggests that we send more than 14 million cars to the scrap yard each year, so it’s refreshing to see some of those abandoned automobiles put to good use in sustainable, eco-friendly style. Leger Wanaselja Architecture’s fabulously ambitious McGee House does just that. The curvaceous upper walls of the 2 bedroom home are fashioned from over 100 salvaged car roofs, while the roofs of the home are constructed from sawn apart gray-colored cars. The bright and airy awning you see? It’s made entirely from the side windows of Dodge Caravans, once “America’s best-selling minivan,” now prevalent in scrap heaps.

Leger Wanaselja’s McGee House is Made From Over 100 Salvaged Car Roofs Leger Wanaselja Architecture, McGee House (2) – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

This house just over 1,100 square feet is a beautiful showcase for off-grid clean living. As for industry assumptions about house design, the innovation is clearly at the edges.

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“I see something of myself in everyone.” Joni Mitchell

This was the theme all along the Asia trip last week. It is culturally easy to over and under assume differences across continents. Yet, the human condition has many threads that runs across the fabric of our commonness. So many of the stories we take personally are narratives that are alive in the collective consciousness.

When I ask people from radically different backgrounds what brings them joy, the resonance is immeasurable. This was certainly borne out in the global research I did for The Joy of Thriving.

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I continue to be interested in the question: Why do we find people all over the planet who are admittedly and shamelessly Godless and at the same time are measurably more compassionate, kind, generous, honest, humble, and deeply curious than many of their God-fearing neighbors?

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Intensive conversations with friends in Shanghai this week reveal a striking contrast between the persistent uneducated perceptions by Americans of China’s present and recent past and the reality. As is often the case, the outside story pales in comparison to the richness of the inside narratives.

As it turns out, there are clear answers to questions about why China opened up its approach to economic growth, why this growth continues to outpace by several times that of the “superpower” US, and what portends the likely arc of growth into the future.

One of the compelling dynamics is that the Communist experiment in practice has revealed the cracks of unsustainable design features. The growth we have seen in the past ten years has evolved into the current state where the majority of businesses are private, wealth is growing and spreading, and the massive infrastructural strength will continue to support the economy.

Government corruption and ineptness continue to entitle party leaders, but with an increasingly benign impact on the economic growth imperative. The movement reflects the global trend toward business having more economic power than governments. The interesting divide to watch globally now is between countries where governments has the power edge over businesses and those where businesses have power edges over their governments.

Either way, we will need leaders who are less driven by corruption and ineptitude or shameless greed and lack of moral compass. To become a thriving planet, we will need leaders who are expert and socially responsible instead.

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Whenever I travel to a new city or region and have someone local to that area delight me to touring it, as my friend Donna knows, I’m happy when I can twist the tour into a turn into something new for them as well. It may be new local events, talent, or flavor.

The sociology of commoditized communities can obscure the uniqueness of place. Commoditized consumers navigate between big screens at home and box box stores across highways. When most of what you consume originates non-locally, local assets become unknown. It sometimes takes takes the serendipitous and relentlless appetite of non-local localvores to reveal discoveries.

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