Exuberance: The Passion for Life

by Kay Redfield Jamison

  20. “an animal of tilled field”: Grahame, Wind in the Willows, p. 93.

  21. “ ‘O, Mole!’ cries the Rat”: ibid., p. 143.

  22. “It’s time we taught him a lesson”: Milne, House at Pooh Corner, p. 109.

  23. “there’s too much of him”: ibid., p. 111.

  24. “Taking people by surprise”: ibid., p. 104.

  25. “He just is bouncy”: ibid., p. 105.

  26. “Piglet settled it all”: ibid., p. 111.

  27. “a different Tigger altogether”: ibid., pp. 112–13.

  28. “If we can make Tigger”: ibid., p. 113.

  29. “Tigger was tearing around”: ibid., pp. 126–27.

  30. “We’ll take Toad seriously in hand”: Grahame, Wind in the Willows, p. 81.

  31. “I’m not sorry”: ibid., p. 123.

  32. “It’s for your own good”: ibid., p. 124.

  33. “We’ll take great care”: ibid., p. 124.

  34. “They descended the stair”: ibid., pp. 125–26.

  35. “Toad once more”: ibid., p. 133.

  36. “It was too late”: ibid., p. 238.

  37. “I’m a cheerful sort of man”: P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins (1934; New York: Dell, 1991), p. 32.

  38. “I become so filled”: ibid., p. 33.

  39. “rolling over and over”: ibid., p. 34.

  40. “growing lighter and lighter”: ibid., p. 35.

  41. “The thought that they would have to go home”: ibid., p. 45.

  42. “Where and How and When”: P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1944; London: HarperCollins, 1994), pp. 255–56.

  43. “interrupted poetry”: Umberto Eco, foreword to Arriva Charlie Brown! (Milan, Italy: Cartonato Milano Libri, 1963).

  44. “simplicity and depth change”: Art Spiegelman, “Abstract Art Is a Warm Puppy,” The New Yorker, February 14, 2000, p. 61.

  45. “gold standard”: Garry Trudeau, “ ‘I Hate Charlie Brown’: An Appreciation,” Washington Post, December 16, 1999.

  46. “The most terrifying loneliness”: Charles M. Schulz, Introduction to “Peanuts” 35th Anniversary Collection (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1985).

  47. “He was the wildest”: Charles M. Schulz, interview with Barnaby Conrad, New York Times Magazine, April 16, 1967, p. 49.

  48. “I wonder why Snoopy”: Charles M. Schulz, Around the World in 45 Years (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 1994), p. 27.

  49. “has to retreat into”: Charles M. Schulz, interview with Gary Groth, in Charles M. Schulz: Conversations (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), p. 221. Originally published in Comics Journal, 200: 3–48 (1997).

  50. “Life for Snoopy”: author’s interview with Judy Sladky, September 22, 2000.

  51. “Snoopy has the freedom to express”: Correspondence from Jean Schulz to author, September 21, 2000.

  52. “On with the dance!”: George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the Third, lines 192–95, in Lord Byron: The Complete Poetical Works, vol. II, ed. Jerome J. McGann (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980), p. 84; first published in 1816.

  53. “The man’s true life”: Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Lantern Bearers,” in The Lantern Bearers and Other Essays, pp. 233–34; essay first published in 1887.

  54. “All children, except one”: James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan (book) (New York: Scribners, 1980), p. 1; first published as Peter and Wendy in 1911.

  55. “I ran away the day I was born”: ibid., p. 26.

  56. “You just think lovely wonderful thoughts”: ibid., p. 33.

  57. “Second to the right”: ibid., p. 36.

  58. “He would come back laughing”: ibid., p. 39.

  59. “If he forgets them so quickly”: ibid.

  60. “all the four seasons”: Barrie, Peter Pan (play), p. 21.

  61. “There are zigzag lines on it”: Barrie, Peter Pan (book), p. 6.

  62. “He was fond of variety”: ibid., p. 37.

  63. “had seen many tragedies”: ibid., p. 81.

  64. “Fancy your forgetting”: Barrie, Peter Pan (play), p. 70.

  65. “which look like black candles”: ibid., p. 23. Because Barrie had portrayed Captain Hook as a graduate of Eton, he was invited to Eton to discuss the Provost’s contention that “James Hook, the pirate captain, was a great Etonian but not a good one.” Barrie suggested to the assembled audience that Hook’s disreputable ways might have been avoided had he not fallen in with bad companions—that is to say, Harrow graduates—while at Oxford. Barrie also noted that Cook’s position in life gave proof to the long-held belief that “the Etonian is a natural leader of men.” J. M. Barrie, “Captain Hook at Eton,” in M’Connachie and J.M.B.: Speeches by J. M. Barrie (London: Peter Davies, 1938), pp. 115–29.

  66. “is not wholly evil”: Barrie, Peter Pan (play), p. 51.

  67. “Pan, who and what art thou?”: ibid., p. 61.

  68. “saw that he was higher”: Barrie, Peter Pan (book), pp. 87–88.

  69. “its true meaning came to me”: quoted in Carpenter, Secret Gardens, p. 187.

  70. “wherever they go”: Milne, House at Pooh Corner, p. 180.

  71. “I remember my youth”: Joseph Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories (New York: Doubleday, 1931), pp. 36–37.

  72. “The regret we have”: Robert Louis Stevenson, “Child’s Play,” in R. L. Stevenson, Essays and Poems, ed. Claire Harman (London: J. M. Dent, 1992), p. 53; essay first published in 1878.

  Chapter 5: “The Champagne of Moods”

  1. Improbably, the English: Patrick Forbes, Champagne: The Wine, the Land and the People (New York: William Morrow, 1967); Tom Stevenson, Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine (San Francisco: Wine Appreciation Guild, 1998).

  2. Christopher Merret described: Christopher Merret, “Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines,” paper presented to the Royal Society in London, December 17, 1662.

  3. Champagne historian Tom Stevenson: Stevenson, Christie’s World Encyclopedia, pp. 9–10.

  4. attempting to annihilate them: Hugh Johnson writes that Dom Pérignon, the cellar master of the Abbey of Hautvillers at the end of the seventeenth century, “took every precaution to avoid bubbles.” Hugh Johnson, The World Atlas of Wine, 4th ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 77. Robert Joseph concurs: “the last thing the monk was aiming to make was fizzy wine.” Robert Joseph, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Wine (London: Carlton, 1996), p. 126.

  5. seven bottles of Champagne: Hachette Atlas of French Wines & Vineyards, gen. ed. Pascal Ribéreau-Gayon (New York: Viking, 2000), p. 126.

  6. 250 million bubbles: Stevenson, Christie’s World Encyclopedia, p. 47. What Champagne would Stevenson recommend? “If money and rarity were no obstacle,” he writes, “I would crack a bottle of Heidsieck & Co. 1907 Goût Americain, which has spent the last 80 years on the bottom of the Baltic courtesy of a German U-Boat in 1916. The bottles are incredibly consistent. With no trace of seawater penetration, the constant 2°C has put this wine through suspended animation and the result is a Champagne which is profoundly and succulently sweet, with impeccably balanced fruit of amazing purity and freshness” (ibid., p. 311).

  7. “men and girls came and went”: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1926; London: Penguin, 1990), p. 41.

  8. “Hardly did it appear”: quoted in Forbes, Champagne, p. 131.

  9. “Champagne should laugh at you”: ibid., p. 352. Forbes is marvelous on the energy and colors of Champagne: “Is it snow-white?” he asks. “Does its agitation, its anxiety to vanish into thin air, convey an impression of force? If so, excellent.” He goes on: “Good Champagnes vary in colour through a range of yellows which extend from straw to primrose and buttercup to bright gold and bronze. A hint of green is exciting; a tinge of brown is a danger signal” (ibid.).

  10. “O the joy”: Walt Whitman, “A Song of Joys,” in Leaves of Grass, ed. Sculley Bradley and Harold W. Blodgett (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 177.

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p; 11. “I must say”: Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pastime (London: Penguin, 1964), p. 29.

  12. “fly to the sky”: Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, Gigi, Warner Brothers, 1958.

  13. psychology textbooks have devoted: E. R. Carlson, “The Affective Tone of Psychology,” Journal of General Psychology, 75: 65–78 (1966).

  14. For every hundred journal articles: Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness (New York: Free Press, 2001), p. 14.

  15. Cross-cultural analyses: James R. Averill, “On the Paucity of Positive Emotions,” in Advances in the Study of Communication and Affect, ed. K. R. Blankstein, P. Pliner, and J. Polivy, vol. 6: Assessment and Modification of Emotional Behavior (New York: Plenum, 1980), pp. 7–45; P. C. Ellsworth and C. A. Smith, “Shades of Joy: Patterns of Appraisal Differentiating Pleasant Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion, 2: 301–31 (1988).

  16. Survival is made more likely: For an excellent review, see R. F. Baumeister, E. Bratslavsky, C. Finkenauer, and K. D. Vohs, “Bad Is Stronger Than Good,” Review of General Psychology, 5: 323–70 (2001).

  17. brain imaging studies: S. Paradiso, D. L. Johnson, N. C. Andreasen, D. S. O’Leary, G. L. Watkins, L. L. Boles Ponto, and R. D. Hichwa, “Cerebral Blood Flow Changes Associated with Attribution of Emotional Valence to Pleasant, Unpleasant, and Neutral Visual Stimuli in a PET Study of Normal Subjects,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 156: 1618–29 (1999); S. B. Hamann, T. D. Ely, J. M. Hoffman, and C. D. Kilts, “Ecstasy and Agony: Activation of the Human Amygdala in Positive and Negative Emotions,” Psychological Science, 13: 135–41 (2002).

  18. positive experiences associated with mania: K. R. Jamison, R. H. Gerner, C. Hammen, and C. Padesky, “Clouds and Silver Linings: Positive Experiences Associated with Primary Affective Disorders,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 137: 198–202 (1980).

  19. “Bright Bubbles”: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6 vols., ed. E. L. Griggs (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1956–71), vol. 1, p. 209.

  20. an entire issue of American Psychologist: special issue on Happiness, Excellence, and Optimal Human Functioning, guest editors Martin E. P. Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, American Psychologist, vol. 55 (January 2000).

  21. “Our message”: ibid., p. 7.

  22. “The trouble with the emotions”: William James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. II (1890; New York: Dover, 1950), p. 449.

  23. high on activation: Exuberance is importantly different from Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi, Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness [Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1988]), most particularly in the intensity and energy of the high mood state of exuberance. As Martin Seligman points out, “There is no positive emotion on the list of [flow’s] essential components. While positive emotions like pleasure, exhilaration, and ecstasy are occasionally mentioned, typically in retrospect, they are not usually felt. In fact it is the absence of emotion, of any kind of consciousness, that is at the heart of flow. Consciousness and emotion are there to correct your trajectory; when what you are doing is seamlessly perfect, you don’t need them.” Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness (New York: Free Press, 2002), pp. 115–16.

  24. anyone who experiences joy: C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (San Diego: Harvest, 1955), p. 18.

  25. Captive foxes: paper presented by Samantha Bremner to the British Ecological Society, December 2001, and reported in New Scientist, 22/29 (December 2001).

  26. Guppies, even: E. W. Warren and S. Callaghan, “Individual Differences in Response to an Open Field Test by the Guppy—Poecilia reticulata (Peters),” Journal of Fish Biology, 7: 105–13 (1975); S. V. Budaev, “ ‘Personality’ in the Guppy (Poecilia reticulata): A Correlational Study of Exploratory Behavior and Social Tendency,” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 111: 399–411 (1997).

  27. “This fundamental duality”: Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (San Diego: Harvest, 2000), pp. 78–79.

  28. “class of ‘raw material’ ”: Gordon Allport, Pattern and Growth in Personality (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961), pp. 33–34.

  29. “bubbles over happily”: Karl Jaspers, General Psychopathology (London: Manchester University Press, 1949), p. 440.

  30. the concept of “hyperthymia”: H. S. Akiskal and G. Mallya, “Criteria for the ‘Soft’ Bipolar Spectrum: Treatment Implications,” Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 23: 68–73 (1987); H. S. Akiskal, “Delineating Irritable and Hyperthymic Variants of the Cyclothymic Temperament,” Journal of Personality Disorders, 6: 326–42 (1992).

  31. The extravert, as defined: J. A. Gray, “The Psychophysiological Basis of Introversion-Extraversion,” Behavior Research & Therapy, 8: 249–66 (1970); S.B.J. Eysenck and H. J. Eysenck, Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975); C. R. Cloninger, D. M. Svrakic, and T. Przybeck, “A Psychobiological Model of Temperament and Character,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 50: 975–90 (1993); D. Watson and L. A. Clark, “Extraversion and Its Positive Emotional Core,” in Handbook of Personality Psychology, ed. R. Hogan, L. Johnson, and S. Briggs (San Diego: Academic Press, 1997), pp. 767–93; O. P. John and S. Srivastava, “The Big Five Trait Taxonomy: History, Measurement, and Theoretical Perspectives,” in Handbook of Personality Theory and Research, ed. L. A. Pervin and O. P. John (New York: Guilford, 1999); R. E. Lucas, E. Diener, A. Grob, E. M. Suh, and L. Shao, “Cross-Cultural Evidence for the Fundamental Features of Extraversion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79: 452–68 (2000).

  32. exquisitely alert and sensitive: R. J. Larsen and T. Ketelaer, “Extraversion, Neuroticism and Susceptibility to Positive and Negative Mood Induction Procedures,” Personality and Individual Differences, 10: 1221–28 (1989); L. A. Clark, D. Watson, and S. Mineka, “Temperament, Personality, and the Mood and Anxiety Disorders,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103: 103–16 (1994); Lucas et al., “Cross-Cultural Evidence.”

  33. The state of one’s mood: H. Berenbaum and T. F. Ottmanns, “Emotional Experience and Expression in Schizophrenia and Depression,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 101: 37–44 (1992); B. E. Wexler, L. Levenson, S. Warrenburg, and L. H. Price, “Decreased Perceptual Sensitivity to Emotion-Evoking Stimuli in Depression,” Psychiatry Research, 51: 127–58 (1994); D. M. Sloan, M. E. Strauss, S. W. Quirk, and M. Sajatovic, “Subjective and Expressive Emotional Responses in Depression,” Journal of Affective Disorders, 46: 135–41 (1997); N. B. Allen, J. Trinder, and C. Brennen, “Affective Startle Modulation in Clinical Depression: Preliminary Findings,” Biological Psychiatry, 46: 542–50 (1999); J. B. Henriques and R. J. Davidson, “Decreased Responsiveness to Reward in Depression,” Cognition and Emotion, 14: 711–24 (2000); D. M. Sloan, M. E. Strauss, and K. L. Wisner, “Diminished Response to Pleasant Stimuli by Depressed Women,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110: 488–93 (2001); J. Rottenberg, K. L. Kasch, J. J. Gross, and I. H. Gotlib, “Sadness and Amusement Reactivity Differentially Predict Concurrent and Prospective Functioning in Major Depressive Disorder,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111: 302–12 (2002); L. K. Murray, T. J. Wheeldon, I. C. Reid, D. A. Rowland, D. M. Burt, and D. I. Perrett, “Depression and Facial Expression Sensitivity: Exploratory Studies: Facial Expression Sensitivity in Depression,” submitted for publication.

  34. cross-species review: S. D. Gosling and O. P. John, “Personality Dimensions in Nonhuman Animals: A Cross-Species Review,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8: 69–75 (1999).

  35. significant differences between octopuses: J. A. Mather and R. C. Anderson, “Personalities of Octopuses (Octopus rubescens),” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 107: 336–40 (1993); D. L. Sinn, N. Perrin, J. A. Mather, and R. C. Anderson, “Early Temperamental Traits in an Octopus (Octopus bimaculoides),” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115: 351–64 (2001).

  36. species with
the most diverse diets: A. S. Clarke and S. Boinski, “Temperament in Nonhuman Primates,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 37: 103–25 (1995).

  37. one house cat in seven: R. E. Adamec, “Anxious Personality in the Cat,” in Psychopathology and the Brain, ed. B. J. Carroll and J. E. Barrett (New York: Raven, 1991), pp. 153–68.

  38. One in five young rhesus monkeys: There have been many studies of individual differences in personality and temperament in nonhuman primates, including: R. Bolig, C. S. Price, P. L. O’Neill, and S. J. Suomi, “Subjective Assessment of Reactivity Level and Personality Traits of Rhesus Monkeys,” International Journal of Primatology, 13: 287–306 (1992); M. T. McGuire, M. J. Raleigh, and D. B. Pollack, “Personality Features in Vervet Monkeys: The Effects of Sex, Age, Social Status, and Group Composition,” American Journal of Primatology, 33: 1–14 (1994); G. Byrne and S. J. Suomi, “Development of Activity Patterns, Social Interactions, and Exploratory Behavior in Infant Tufted Capuchins (Cebus apella),” American Journal of Primatology, 35: 255–70 (1995); S. L. Watson and J. P. Ward, “Temperament and Problem Solving in the Small-Eared Bushbaby (Otolemur garnettii),” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 110: 377–85 (1996); D. M. Dutton, R. A. Clark, and D. W. Dickins, “Personality in Captive Chimpanzees: Use of a Novel Rating Procedure,” International Journal of Primatology, 18: 539–52 (1997); A. Weiss, J. E. King, and A. J. Figueredo, “The Heritability of Personality Factors in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes),” Behavior Genetics, 30: 213–21 (2000); L. A. Fairbanks, “Individual Differences in Response to a Stranger: Social Impulsivity as a Dimension of Temperament in Vervet Monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus),” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115: 22–28 (2001).

  39. Among zebra finches and pumpkinseed sunfish: D. S. Wilson, K. Coleman, A. B. Clark, and L. Biederman, “Shy-Bold Continuum in Pumpkinseed Sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus): An Ecological Study of a Psychological Trait,” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 107: 250–60 (1993); G. Beauchamp, “Individual Differences in Activity and Exploration Influence Leadership in Pairs of Foraging Zebra Finches,” Behaviour, 137: 301–14 (2000).