The Search for Happiness

The Search for Happiness
Typewriter print, vellum
2009

The rise in self help book production and sales has soared in the recent years and the new ‘science of happiness’ has become a cultural orthodoxy. With ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ (first published in 1936) back in the bestseller charts and British publishers netting more than £60 million in the past five years in the self-help genre, it is clear that the cultural phenomena of ‘positive thinking’ is everywhere.

With advanced capitalism, this rise has become a symptom of larger economic and social issues. Amidst the instability in career prospects, and fading religious and traditional means of social support, we find ourselves in a society that is forever shifting. Are we searching for self affirmation and joy when we cannot find it anywhere else? Or are these bizarre acts and fantastically popular concepts, such as the ‘law of attraction’, becoming the real product of our new society?

This is a selection of pages from a 365 day study into this cultural phenomena, and the effect of my own search for happiness.