Ecologue

Ecologue Post:
Economics of Happiness, a Reflection
Lauren Armony

I spent the weekend of February 27th through March 1st at the Economics of Happiness Conference, in gratitude to receiving a professional development grant through the OSU Student Sustainability Initiative. The conference fruited in the Eliot Center of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Southwest Portland, Oregon. The philosophy behind, and driving, this conference was that there is an intersection between economics and our feeling of well-being, and that amassing more wealth does not necessarily make one happier. The foci were on local economic systems, sustainability, and quality of life. The conference was organized into a series of plenaries, or panels of privileged speakers, with intermittent breaks and specialized workshop periods.

The plenaries were located in the sanctuary, a seemingly apt place to be listening to their stories. I felt open while sitting in the pews, or on the floor, with my pen and notebook. I was unsure of whether it was in irony or coincidence that the first plenary speaker was talking about how contemporary educational institutions were creating a monoculture of the mind, being standardized and singular in its approach. As a gardener I had an instant revulsion to the term monoculture, and as a student well into winter term of college, I felt validated in my struggle in the pursuit of knowledge, experience, and a decent grade point average. This, of course, was just the beginning of an immersion to alternative ways of living and critically analyzing the quality of my life. With even more irony, the exhaustion of hearing so many stories almost made me wish I stayed home and done homework instead. That, of course, was a momentary musing, and I’ll be pondering what I’ve learned from this conference for as long as I think our socioeconomic systems are unstable, unsustainable, and not happy.

Aside from the pedagogical essence of the plenaries, I was able to attend two workshops, one on the subject of food sovereignty and the other on buddhist meditation for activists. During the workshop on food sovereignty I had the opportunity to talk about the Growing Food Security Project, a program I have been honored to be a part of through my position in the Student Sustainability Initiative. Through sharing this project with many people who have been steeped in the food justice sector longer than me, I was able to gain more insight into strategies and resources I can look into to enhance the community capacity-building vision of this project. The buddhist meditation workshop was amazing in that I learned how to hone my skills and be more effective in my work. I felt honored to have so many people share their stories with me.

The largest takeaway I have from the conference, that will affect my work at this university, is the idea of creating a system conducive to intergenerational dialogue, as in, having people of all ages collaborating and learning from each other. This was further exemplified by the very organization of this conference. There were people younger and far older than me who were fellow participants. It’s kind of hard for me to find older people that have done similar things as I am trying to do in the university setting, and it is not because I am doing something novel. It is because people graduate, people move, people don’t leave forwarding addresses, and a lot of elders go into assisted living centers.

People move.
A plenary speaker brought up Gary Snyder’s assertion that to value nature we must have a relationship with it. “To stay put,” he said. It takes, in my experience, a lot of luck to have the privilege of developing a relationship with a more experienced person and to have them share their insights, challenges, and advice about their experiences. To me, trying something on my own is akin to trying to remake the wheel. Why would any of us need to remake any wheels if there were local historians and scientists everywhere? This is rhetorical and I have no inclination to give a response.
So I’ll leave it here. Much else of what I learned I haven’t been able to put into words yet even though I amassed twelve pages of notes over the course of two days. I recommend watching the film and reading about previous conferences that have taken place to glean a bit more about the experience. Of course, you could always contact me, I love talking about my life over tea.