In the New York Times, I read an article by Molly Young on Finland topping the World’s Happiness Index. What’s the measure since Bhutan, the country whose Gross National Happiness Index gave rise to the report, has been absent from the list since 2019, when it came in number 95?
After visiting saunas, Young goes to Helsinki’s main library called Oodi which is Finnish for Ode. She writes that the library is “enchanting but it was a piece of signage that took my breath away. At home in Brooklyn, the library is papered with reminders to “Please keep your voice down.” In contradistinction, the signs at Oodi said, “Please let others work in peace!” The two commands are almost — but meaningfully not — synonymous. The Brooklyn version is a plea for self-control. The Finnish version is a request to acknowledge the existence of other people. You see the difference.“
“On the top floor were books, games and sheet music from composers like Edvard Grieg and Yanni. There was a second cafe (more salmon soup, pink-domed princess cakes) and glass jars of fresh flowers at every table. Bucida buceras trees grew indoors. Sunshine pressed gently through curved glass walls. Beyond the walls stood the House of Parliament with its mighty gray facade. The Oodi balcony was designed to rest at precisely the same level as the entrance to the House — “to symbolise democracy and dialogue,” according to a library brochure.“
“Children in stocking feet rolled down a sloping spruce floor as though it were a grassy hill. (Pause to contemplate the farfetchedness of a public library in a major U.S. city that is clean enough for floor-rolling.) Watching them frolic beneath a wavy egg of ceiling I became, once again, very sad. Here was a vision of human flourishing that was simultaneously simple and inconceivable. As a kid in San Francisco, I remember walking into a public library and overhearing a man crack the following joke: “For a homeless shelter, this place sure has a lot of books.”“
“It would be a mistake not to mention that Oodi performed a shelter function, too. There were people with an unusual volume of possessions using the space as a temperature-controlled sleeping enclosure. It was allowed.”
She goes on but I’m struck by how each of us measures our own happiness, and how a country spends its money. Trump wants to increase the defense budget to one trillion dollars for 2026 while cutting programs that benefit the people, and so sadly the happiness index of the U.S. is going down and we’re in 24th place.
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