Intro

As a culture, we are obsessed with being happy, and it seems that we always have been. It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence, the first line of the second paragraph, dated July 4, 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Codified like that, you know these people took their happiness seriously. It’s not just a right, it’s an unalienable right.

That doesn’t sound unreasonable. Our journal is built around the idea that adventure brings happiness. But what is happiness? Is it elation? Joy? Mindfulness? The absence of unhappiness? These are not the idle thoughts of an amateur philosopher. Culturally, happiness is presented as a lodestar, like youth or material wealth, and the subtext is that if you don’t have it, there’s something wrong with you. Few are immune.

I certainly am not, and the last couple of years have brought