basically, i'm going to try to become more of a renaissance man. that's not quite right; what i mean is that i'm going to try to pick up as many different kinds of happiness as follows. the reason religion is so appealing is that it can't go wrong; since it's faith-based, it's a very reliable happiness-bringer. money is similar; assuming that you don't invest in some nigerian scam, if you can figure out how to use money to acquire happiness and then accumulate money you have a reasonable reservoir of happiness.
now, religion doesn't seem to do much for me, and money doesn't either, but i'm going to try to diversify my portfolio, so to speak. broadly speaking, there are two types of people: obsessors, who get infatuated with one thing or one person, and generalists, who always have a few things on the burner. you can look at lots of microcosms here: the generalists are the ones who spend each night hanging out with a different person, go on "dates" and have nebulous relationships with people romantically, and who are always in the middle of several books. the obsessors are the ones who try to find someone perfect and spend each night with them, who love commitment, and who read books one at a time.
i've always been an obsessor. i get really excited about something or someone and press the point until i get sick of it or them. i think this is still the case, but i think the generalists are happier, and i figure since i have little real direction in life i can try to be one of them for a while and see what happens. i find that i have little trouble categorizing my friends and acquaintances into the two categories (try it for yourself.)
but back to the point -- the generalists can be happier because less of their life is dependent on one thing. if a friend dies, or the stock market crashes, or an ice age starts, or whatever, the generalists have ample enough recourse to not be in too deep a depression. meanwhile, the obsessor must face failure (to take one possible bad thing) in the face; they don't have a safety net of other ideas and things. i'm quite happy and energetic now, but i know that this has happened to me in the past, and i don't need to rehash those situations.
so what's the point? i'm going to try to pick up casual acquaintances. my trial period, at vancouver and duluth, worked out well; i think i can in theory do this, and i think it makes me happy for 22 hours a day (the exceptions being the hour before i go to bed and the hour after i wake up.) i'm going to try to pick up casual activities, things i like doing but am not too attached to. there are some obvious ones, like reading.
i don't know if it's possible, though. i don't mean to seem arrogant, but i think too much. regardless of what activity i'm doing, i'm training my attention on it and obsessing about it. it's hard to get around serial obsession when one gets engrossed like this.