Up Up and Away

Two days until Denmark! I couldn't be more excited, although I might be getting a rude awakening once the plane lands. As I write this post I am sitting in my house which is on 10 acres of land with a barn and a couple of horses. There are a couple of cars driving by as well as the occasional manure spreader making the rounds through the fields that aren't enclosed by fencing, but other than that there isn't much happening on this lazy Sunday. I enjoy this tranquility in my small town that doesn't even have a single traffic light. Will I like Denmark? Of course I except to find myself in awe when I arrive, but will it be too much for me? Will I be overwhelmed by the people, the culture, and/or the difficulty of finding my way? My town of Waitsfield, Vermont holds around 1,700 people while Copenhagen has a population of roughly 558,000 people. That means that you could fit a little more than 328 Waitsfields in Copenhagen. While that is something interesting to think about, I'm sure I will handle the change in pace that Denmark will be for me. Throughout the last semester Phil 347, the course that is taking us to Denmark, has taken a look into happiness, what it means to be happy, and how one can work on becoming happy. Throughout the semester we broke down readings from a broad spectrum of philosophers. From more well known philosophers such as Plato, Nietzsche, and Hobbes to readings from Buddhism and Yoga, more contemporary philosophies from Alain de Botton and Sara Ahmed, and even a focus on positive psychology and the concept of Flow the students of the "happiness" course were able to discuss how these philosophies may or may not be applicable to our daily lives. Of course Denmark is different from the United States in many aspects, but what about happiness? Supposedly Denmark is the happiest place on Earth and I am looking forward to trying to figure out if that is true, and if it is, why? Well I can't figure that out by being staying in my little town. The next post I write will be from Copenhagen!

And now time for the word of the day. Each post I will insert a Danish word within the theme of happiness. The word for this post is:

blomstrende = flourishing

Human flourishing is the name of the course as well as what we are studying within Copenhagen. To flourish is to thrive, grow, and develop. Since we are about to study happiness and how people flourish in Denmark I find flourishing to be a good choice for the first word of the day. 

Cheers to overcoming jet lag,
Jamie