The big event of the week was my interview for admission to Alaska Pacific University’s Master of Science in Counseling Psychology (MSCP) program. In preparation for it I had read up on the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (AMHTA), as it seemed reasonable that I might get asked whether I knew anything about it. Wrong.
There were seven (maybe eight?) people on the screening committee, a mix of both faculty and students. They asked one question each; the first one was a pretty low-threat standard put-him-at-ease question about why did I want to pursue the MSCP. Then I get this for my second question- “If you were a fabric, what kind of fabric would you be, and, what would that fabric be made into?”.
I looked at him and said “I spent the evening last night reading about the AMHTA , and you ask me what kind of fabric I am?” He sniffed and replied, “That institution down the street (University of Alaska) would ask that sort of question.” We were both smiling.
I figured “Kevlar” and “body armor” would definitely convey the wrong impression. I considered “silk”- “The first impression is cold to the touch, but then you come to appreciate it’s luxurious richness and resilient toughness”. Oh yeah! I finally settled on “flannel”, but please don’t ask me what I came up with for the second part of the question!
Another question was “What do you do for fun?”. This seems like a pretty simple, straightforward question, but of course nothing is simple or straightforward with me. The problem I have with the question is how it seems to compartmentalize and limit “fun” to an activity you do to get a temporary adrenalin “high”.
Now, without question I am happier and more profoundly contented than I have ever been in my entire life. Yet the question wasn’t was I happy, it was what did I do for fun. That points up a surprisingly interesting distinction, and one that has drawn a surprisingly large amount of attention in the field of psychology in recent years- the nature of happiness. It is not as New Age-y and woo-woo as it might first appear.
I recently heard a commentator speculating on why the Founding Fathers used the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” and what they might have understood it to mean. He noted how the pursuit of happiness has, in our time, come to be understood as the pursuit of fun. We wind up with unhappy people trying to have “fun”, perhaps increasingly risky fun, in an effort to cure, or at least stave off, their unhappiness. How many of the people diagnosed as depressed are simply unhappy? How do the two conditions relate and interact?
But I was asked a simple question that wanted a simple answer. I made a brief, halting effort to suggest some of what I’ve written above, then tossed out a few of the activities that Lesa and I enjoy doing together, and left it at that. I should have their decision before the Ides of March.
Time for bed. Thank God tomorrow is Friday- and as a Federal worker I get Monday off as well. “Your tax dollars at work”, as they say, and I appreciate you for it!
