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Dizzying spectacle

Alex James

Wednesday, 5th March 2008

Alex James leads a Slow Life

As it is something we all crave, even demand as a right, a lot of research has been conducted into what makes people happy. I’m surprised everybody isn’t aware, and apologies if you already are, that there are three different classes of experience that are all guaranteed to fill our wells of content.

First, some kind of sensory satisfaction is bound to make us feel better: sex, shopping, cheese; all that stuff in the adverts. It’s relatively easy and instant, but unfortunately it doesn’t last long. More profound and enduring, second-order satisfaction is to be found doing things that we are good at. We’re all good at something. As you may know, I am brilliant at Tiddlywinks and it is a source of great personal satisfaction, but there is sometimes the nagging feeling that there may be more to life than Tiddlywinks, as it were, which is why it is sometimes necessary to invoke the third option: the only proven route to universal, enduring, bottomless bliss. The more I think about happiness, part three, the more wonderful it seems; the more fondness I feel towards humanity as a thing, and the happier I feel, actually.

The best way to stay deeply happy is to do good: to find something that we believe in, that is in some sense bigger than we are, to make ourselves a part of it and muck in. It explains ageing rock stars’ predilection for saving the world. Having spent their lives being paid for doing something they are good at and enjoy, while simultaneously exhausting the spectrum of sensory delights, is bound to prompt the conscience to give something back in all but the maddest maestro, and these acts of selflessness as they develop, if we are to believe the research, bring more satisfaction than any amount of feasting, physical adulation or bags of shopping ever did.

It was not in the spirit of the world-saving rock star that I agreed to help the National Trust with their Great Green Leap Day initiative. But when I thought about it afterwards, which I did quite a lot, I realised I was wearing a big smile as I turned it over in my mind. The Trust had given its entire workforce the Leap Day off to set about greening up their lives: switching to low-energy lightbulbs, installing draught-excluders, planting cabbages, all the easy stuff that we know we should have done ages ago but never got round to. An excellent idea. The children of St James’s School in Chipping Campden were joining in, with a great amount of purpose and glee, learning about food miles and all sorts besides, by planting up a couple of vegetable beds in their playground. Gardeners from Hidcote Manor, a Trust property nearby, were in attendance, lending their expertise. I was there for muscle. I love a bit of digging.

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