Note from the Editor

Phil Brocato
Ed.D. student, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California

Among the triad of deeply cherished ideals in the cultural psyche of the American nation as set out in the Declaration of Independence, happiness is probably the most immanently felt and yet the most elusive one. One might not be able to define it in exact terms which will sufficiently reflect his or her inner mental landscape but we all know it instinctively when we are in such a state. It lives in us in a variegation of manifestations. And as in most other human emotions, happiness is shaped by a host of subjective, interpersonal, social and historical forces. Be that as it may, we all have a deep yearning for it, knowingly or not; we all pursue it relentlessly, maximize it at all cost, sometimes even unwittingly doing it at the expense of other people's happiness, the very people we love and whom we want to be happy. We are all what the Greeks called the 'hedons' one way or another.

To that end, this month's issue is devoted to an ethnographic investigation of the nature of happiness. The project grew out of a class on the Psychology of Adjustment taught by Professor Kathleen O'Connell Hodge. The interviews selected were done by the students who had sought to seek their own "experts' on life lessons on love and happiness. The result of this enlightening endeavor is the collection of interviews, rife with both the fond (and perhaps not-so-fond) memories of a life well spent and the sagacious remarks of a soul who has lived through and learned from the vicissitudes of life. A round of applause should also be given to the group of talented youngsters who have reached across the generations to search for answers to one of the most perennial questions concerning the human conditions: what is happiness?

A special big thank you goes out to copy editor Kigan Chang, our underemployed yet 'happy' philosophy graduate student, who, as an diligent student of the human condition at large, has taken special interest in this issue and selected the interviews for this month's contributions

Cheers!
Phil

Academic Exchange Extra invites reader responses to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.

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