Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (1:20 p.m.) Happiness Group Journal | Page 5

The Creative Process
To prepare ourselves for our
class discussion on happiness, we
first studied the physical science,
philosophy, and theory of
happiness. We continued our
studies reading literary works;
novels, short stories, poems and
analyzing lyrics, visual artworks,
music, and films. These pieces of
art attempt not only to depict but
to also ‘move’ the reader/viewer
to feel the emotion of happiness,
which we then discussed on ‘how’
it did so in class. The class took
part in minor discussions after
each set of reading that built off
of previous readings so we could
begin imagining our ‘picture’ of
society’s views on happiness. These
discussions often involved works of
art that critiqued society’s
treatment of happiness, and
utilized the readings to justify why
this view and/or treatment of this
emotion is wrong.
Once all of these readings
were finished, the class discussed
themes that they had identified
throughout the process. Most of
these subject matter was centered
around the topic of what we
believed as wrong about the
handling of happiness within
society. In the end, the theme that
stuck out the most to the class (as
depicted by intense conversation
on that topic) was how we are
blocked from doing things that
would make us truly happy by
the things that society tells us we
have to do. This theme related to
our hectic calendars and to do lists
that, as college students, we can
never seem to keep up with.
As the conversation
progressed down this line of
thought, we began to identify
new aspects of the ‘picture’ we
wanted to create. The basic setup
of the painting started with two
rooms separated by a doorway.
One side of the doorway would
look out into fantastic natural
elements whereas the other side
would be more like our daily lives.
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