Mindful Tourist Book Review: The Geography of Bliss
Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss is exactly the book we would write if we were half as good a writer as he is. See? We just ended a sentence with a preposition. Oh, that’s not a preposition? See? We’re hopeless.
Billed as “one grump’s search for the happiest places in the world,” Weiner regales readers with his travels around the globe in a quest to understand happiness and its relationship to place and culture. Weiner’s writing is at once, smart, touching, philosophical, informative, and quite hilarious.
His adventures in happy places such as Iceland and Bhutan are inspiring. We learn that, in Iceland, the ability to remake yourself almost whenever you wish is part of what makes people happy there. You’re never stuck in a career you hate; and every Icelander fancies himself an artist in some way. A small country with a relatively small capital city also makes Iceland welcoming. If you are driving behind a person who could be your cousin’s wife, you’re less likely to make rude hand gestures when she’s a little late to get moving at the green light. Small countries, like small towns, tend toward a more civil attitude.
Bhutan, a country that measures its success through a policy of Gross National Happiness, is a non-smoking country with no murders to speak of, free health care and education, whose army does little army-ish stuff, but instead makes most of the country’s alcohol.
At the risk of sounding like the enlightened Westerner who oh-so-quaintly wants to keep the “savage lands” as they are, we are a bit scared for Bhutan. While it has put in place many laws and regulations to stop it from become overrun by travelers and outsiders and losing its culture – like the banning of neon signs and the fact that all tourists must have a guide escort them around the country – there is one major problem that Weiner writes about. In 1999, the Bhutan people were gifted with “Regis and Kelly,” “I Love Toy Trains,” and Lifetime movies. Yes, television arrived. Now, there’s not going to be a “Real Housewives of Thimphu” anytime soon, but quickly, Bhutanese teenagers who grew up as Buddhists, became fanatics of Wrestlemania. Bhutan banned the channel that showed it but then other channels started showing wrestling. Weiner writes: “Sangay Ngedup, a former prime minister, expressed a concern shared by many Bhutanese. ‘Until recently, we shied away from killing insects and yet now we Bhutanese are asked to watch people on TV blowing heads off with shotguns.’”
Weiner’s visits to less happy countries like Moldova and Qatar are just as interesting. He comes to the conclusion that fresh fruit notwithstanding, a shared culture and shared history are a big part of a country’s potential for happiness. Weiner traveled to other places: Thailand, Switzerland, the USA, Great Britain, India, and the Netherlands. We were a bit disappointed he did not visit or report on any Latin American or African countries.
So, did Weiner find out the key to happiness? Throughout the book, he hears that happiness is:
- Not thinking too much
- Clean toilets
- Boredom
- Acceptance of our insignificance in the larger scheme of things
- Realistic expectations
- “Below the navel”
- Outside
- People
- Freedom
- Communism
- Acting happy
- Sounds of a busy city
- Home
All we know is that reading this book made us pretty happy. And we think we might have learned a bit as well. The book shows the reader sides of countries that neither travel books nor our travels themselves in many cases, are likely to bring out. We feel we know a little more about the actual people of these countries and we have added a couple more new countries to our “to do” list.
But, come on, did the grump complete his quest to understand happiness? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Excellent book! Eric Weiner is awesome. Thanks for the review.