This is a great opportunity to share with you
somebody's experiences and some other things I learn
while making a film exploring the true causes of happiness.
The project started when a friend of mine called me on the phone
and he said he read an article that morning
in the New York Times about happiness
and essentially the article said
we're very rich country but not a very happy country.
We're number 23 on the list
no matter we have lots of money
and this friend of mine..his name is Tom Shadiac
he is a guy in the right
he has make literally tens of millions of dollars
directing huge blockbuster Hollywood films
like the naughty professor, Bruce Almighty, liar liar, patch atoms
He said," Look, I know what its like to have a lot of money
and I hang up with people who are more wealthy than me
who are more talented,more successful
better looking...and many of them are not happy.
And in fact the people who sweep the floor in my house
and who tend the garden on my estate
often have more a genuine smile on their faces
than the millionares
that I work with everyday in Hollywood.
I said" I know what does us make happy
I wanna know what does
so he suggested that we make a documentary film exploring happiness
he said ," Look, I am not the documentary and you are."
What do you think?
It sounds great. And he said," I'll happy pay for it."
What do you think about exploring happiness. Sounds it amazing.
I immediately got online and discovered a couple interesting things.
One is that there's new science exploring happiness called positive psychology
which some people would heard of by now
Its the first time really
that the western science has looked
very acutely at the idea of human flourishing.
For thousand of years we've studied what happened to people
who are having problems
to mental illness and pathology
But only recently do we study the other side of the spectrum.
And one of the exciting things that I learn kind of immediately
is that happiness is good for you.
Your immune system gets boosted
You are more creative
You have better relationships
You are healthier and
you even live longer.
And when I though of living long
I was trying think who we'll gonna put
in our movie beside the scientist
I did not wanna make a movie of people talking about happiness
I thought that it will really boring
So I knew I wanted to find people who storage of life
could illustrate this scientific concept
and I remember being a child
and I love the guinness book of records
There was often the oldest person in the world
came from Japan.
And specifically from an island in the south called Okinawa.
And I remember that and I though
Ok, if happy people get to become old
maybe a lot of this elderly people in Okinawa are happy.
And at that the time we couldn't find any research on it
But because my producing partner is Japanese
He said,"Look, I 'll get excuse to see my Mom
why don't we go and check it out.
So we went to Okinawa to find out
An absolutely beautiful place
And the firt stop was at the community center.
And what we discovered among other things
is that its easy in Okinawa to feel tall.
That's me and my film maker friends in the back row
Class picture I was never in the back row
The other thing we learn is that this tradition of meeting
in the community center has gone on for probably thousand of years
It looks like a modern building now
But they've been doing this
since it was grasp up with palm leaves on the roof.
And what I saw was crazy
This people in their mid nineties
some were in the mid eighties
but they were laughing and making jokes with each other
and they were blasting a boom box
It's a traditional Okinawan music
But it was blasting just like any teenager bedroom would be on the weekend
and I sort of don't like buying souvenirs when I travel
cause the world has enough crap in it
and it just feels like a waste sometimes
but I saw this women dancing
once they gets up and do this hula dance
and I though," I wanna take that back,"
I wanna learn one of this dance steps
its kind of paying attention to one
I was trying to figure out
and then I looked at the other woman
and she was doing a different steps
It looks similar but different
I couldn't figure out
so finally I said
Hey, would you please teach me this dance step
And the woman laugh and she said
Oh, we don't have a traditional dance step
in Okinawa you can do whatever you want.
Now, I have been to.. I've been extremely lucky
I've been about fifty different countries in the world
And I have never discovered that a traditional dance step is freestyle
But in Okinawa it is
My producing partner Eji in the middle
He had a great idea, he said
Let's see what a hundreds years old person looks like
when they two or three years old.
Where we'll be able to see the seed of a long
and happy life at that early stage
So we went to a pre school
And the teacher apologized, she said," I am so sorry,"
But today is one day every couple of weeks
we'll gonna spend outside of the class room.
We'll gonna have a foot race through town.
So we followed this fifty kids or so
They started the race and we noticed that at the other..
at the end of the block
there was a group of grand mothers converging.
And the grand mothers were there
as every kids crossed the finished lined the grand mothers hugging them,
they were clapping, they were cheering them on
and if somebody's falling they skin their knee
They'll be there to nurture them
and it was a beautiful scene
and I went to first grand mother just to make a small talk
and I said," Hey congratulations on having such a speedy grand child."
and she looked at the kid who I was referring to and she said
Oh, that's not my grand child
She kind of looked at me up and down and she said
My grand children are older than you.
And so I looked at her friends, about fifty grand mothers there
Whose grand child is that?