
Dr Bronwyn Tarr: How to live a happy life - benbreen
http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-in-conversation/how-live-happy-life/dr-bronwyn-tarr
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yosito
This makes me wish there was a dating app which could match me with people
based on the similarity of the music we listen to. Just yesterday I was
driving to work rocking out to some Spanish punk rock and thinking that if I
could just find a partner who also listens to Spanish punk rock we'd probably
have a lot more in common than any of the people I meet though existing dating
apps.

Edit: There is such an app. It's called Tastebuds. Downloading it now to check
it out.

Edit: Ok, the app sucks. It doesn't match you with people based on your music,
it just lets you add music you like to your profile.

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Paul_S
Sharing music tastes is about as important as sharing hair colour.

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AndrewUnmuted
Written by somebody who likely has a very bland, unadventurous taste in music.

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gertef
Or a very exciting, adventurous taste in hair color

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jph
Bronwyn Tarr's research on synchrony is fascinating. See e.g. her paper on
silent disco dancing. I speculate that good teamwork programming may be
activating related areas of the mind. I know coders who develop together can
achieve a kind of flow, a synchrony of purpose. Can these coders gain the
health benefits of bonding and endorphins?

See her publications [https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/bronwyn-
tarr](https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/bronwyn-tarr)

"[W]e propose that synchrony might act as direct means to encourage group
cohesion by causing the release of neurohormones that influence social
bonding. By acting on ancient neurochemical bonding mechanisms, synchrony can
act as a primal and direct social bonding agent, and this might explain its
recurrence throughout diverse human cultures and contexts (e.g. dance, prayer,
marching, music-making)."

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kitd
I wonder if she's ever looked at rowing (she should have enough guinea pigs in
Oxford). Nothing else I've done in life has come close to the bonding I've
felt after a hard season's competition in a rowing crew, the epitome of
synchrony.

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cgh
Rowing is explicitly mentioned in the article.

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kitd
Indeed. Apologies, I didn't make it that far down.

There have been occasions in very coherent crews when I have felt outside my
own body and not in control of it, as if the whole crew was being driven by a
single external force.

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replicatorblog
MARTIAL, the things that do attain The happy life be these, I find:— The
richesse left, not got with pain; The fruitful ground, the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife; No charge of rule, nor governance;
Without disease, the healthful life; The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no delicate fare; True wisdom join'd with simpleness; The night
dischargèd of all care, Where wine the wit may not oppress.

The faithful wife, without debate; Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
Contented with thine own estate Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.

— Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. 1516–47, translated from Martial's Epigrams
(Born 38 AD).

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andrem
Ah yes. The one stop shop to a happy life.

We are quite a finnicky species and trying to shoehorn everyone into the same
mold is probably not a recipe for great happiness.

Just accept that people are different, you won't find happiness following
someone else's rulebook and do the things that matter to you. Accept those
things as your source of happiness.

If your sources of happiness are not compatible with society in general do
them where you can enjoy them on your own or with a group of likeminded peers.

Do not be concerned about how unique you are. Embrace it.

If you are not unique embrace that too.

Focus on what it is that you really want to do.

Life will be over soon enough.

Stop chasing your happiness and live life. Happiness will follow :)

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mattmanser
So instead of listening to a Doctor from Oxford University, who has obviously
studied this extensively, we should listen to you?

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damnfine
Why not? He seems a bit happier than the Doc.

In all seriousness, critique the ideas, not the source.

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ENTP
Bronwyn is a beautiful Welsh name.

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shams93
Don't be born working class, don't take student loans, if you want to be happy
you have to exploit other people cause it's a dog eat dog would be exploited
or exploit kind of world with no love or caring or community

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geff82
What a negative view of life...

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jensv
Perhaps, but what if it is accurate? It's been said that religion is opium for
the masses. Deluding yourself might make you feel good but you're still
suffering.

As I type this the following is on the front page: 'Body Brokers' Get
Kickbacks to Lure People with Addictions to Bad Rehab.

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beaconstudios
it was said by Marx, who had his own delusions that have led to the deaths
many many people. I don't think we as a species are capable of being 100%
rational.

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marrs
The quote with some context:

Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium,
its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its
moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation
and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since
the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against
religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose
spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real
suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the
demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions
about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires
illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism
of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man
shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that
he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of
religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality
like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he
will move around himself as his own true Sun

