Fwd: The history of human emotions

It is the featured TED talk by Tiffany Watt Smith on emotions that made me watch this twice and show her talk to Lynn.  Today, happiness is all the rage and for very good reasons.  How about more practice at developing our ability to feel sad, really sad?  Is it good for us?  Are we underdeveloped sadness-wise?  Bill

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From: This week on TED.com <no_reply@ted.com>
Date: Sat, Dec 23, 2017 at 9:27 AM
Subject: The history of human emotions
To: olderkirby@gmail.com

What do we call our feelings? Open in your browser

This week on TED.com December 23, 2017

Talk of the week Tiffany Watt Smith: The history of human emotions 14:20 minutes · Filmed Nov 2017 · Posted Dec 2017 · TED@Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany The words we use to describe our emotions affect how we feel, says historian Tiffany Watt Smith, and they've often changed (sometimes very dramatically) in response to new expectations and ideas. Take nostalgia: Today, it's a gentle wistfulness for the past, but when it was first defined in 1688, it was an illness -- and it was deadly. In this fascinating talk, learn more about the language we use to describe how we feel, and how it continues to evolve -- and pick up some new words to capture those fleeting feelings. Watch now »

Playlist of the week Most popular TED Talks of 2017 What a year! These 14 talks challenged our perceptions of love, happiness, what the future will hold ... and, um, the very nature of reality itself. Watch » Total run time 3:48:09

catch up on this week's new TED Talks Sometimes, words are magic. But in this subtitled talk, legendary poet, lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar asks why we seem to be losing our power to use words these days -- and inspires us to better understand and communicate with one another using this wondrous tool that carries our ideas and culture across generations. (In Hindi with English subtitles) Watch » Could smartphones and cameras be our most powerful weapons for justice? Through her organization Witness, Yvette Alberdingk Thijm is developing technologies that help people use raw video to protect their rights. She shares stories of the growing power of distant witnesses -- and a call to use the tools at our disposal to capture and stop injustice. Watch » Christian Benimana wants to build a network of architects who can help Africa's booming cities flourish -- balancing rapid growth with values that are uniquely African. From Nigeria to Burkina Faso and beyond, he shares examples of a pan-African movement of architects, designers and engineers who are learning from and inspiring each other. Benimana invites us to imagine future African cities as the most resilient, vibrant, inclusive places on earth. Watch » Heather Lanier's daughter Fiona has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a genetic condition that results in developmental delays -- but, as she makes clear, that doesn't make her tragic, angelic or any of the other stereotypes about kids like her. In this talk about the beautiful, complicated, joyful and hard journey of raising a rare girl, Lanier questions our assumptions about what makes a life "good" or "bad," and asks us to take life as it comes. Watch » Joel Jackson wants to reimagine transportation around the needs of the African consumer. He's designed an SUV that's rugged enough for long stretches of uneven terrain and affordable enough to be within reach of those who need it most. Learn more about the challenges of mobility and manufacturing in Africa -- and what a localized motor industry could mean for the future of the continent. Watch » "I'm Deb's son." "And I'm Hank's mom." In this warm, loving, funny talk, Deborah Willis, the legendary photographer and art scholar, speaks onstage with her son, the artist Hank Willis Thomas. The mother and son artists show how they draw from one another in their work, how their art challenges mainstream narratives about black life and black joy, and how, ultimately, everything comes down to love. Watch »

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Quote of the Week " Today, we celebrate happiness. Happiness is supposed to make us better workers and parents and partners; it's supposed to make us live longer. In the 16th century, sadness was thought to do most of those things. It's possible to read self-help books from that period which try to encourage sadness in readers by giving them lists of reasons to be disappointed. These self-help authors thought you could cultivate sadness as a skill, since being expert in it would make you more resilient when something bad did happen to you, as invariably it would. I think we could learn from this today. Feel sad today, and you might feel impatient, even a little ashamed. Feel sad in the 16th century, and you might feel a little bit smug." Tiffany Watt Smith The history of human emotions

ted radio hour: rethinking medicine Our approach to treating disease is, in many ways, narrow and rooted in the past. Is it time for a new paradigm? This hour, TED speakers share their visions for new ways to understand medicine. Listen to TED Radio Hour on Apple Podcasts »

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