Happy holidays?

Recently I quoted George Orwell's question 'Can Socialists be happy?' To be fair, George was really asking 'Does anyone concerned about the state of an unjust world have the right to be happy?', but I'm happy to co-opt his question to my own meaning, i.e., Socialists are just too screwed up to ever be happy. In that vein, comes something from today's column by Ross Gittins in the Age.

Ross used to be a very informative commentator on economics: I never came away from one of his columns without feeling I'd learned something. But lately, he mostly does columns about how we're earning more but enjoying it less, and if we learned to live more simply, we'd all be happier. Unfortunately, the kind of 'simplicity' that Ross is talking about is mostly only achievable in modern, developed capitalist economies, by people with a considerable disposable income. (Along similar lines comes a report today indicating, as we knew already, that there's a correlation between social 'disadvantage' and being overweight. Think about that: being fat is now a sign of being 'poor'.)

So now Ross specializes in reporting on the latest 'happiness' research. Today, it's about holidays, and how they never quite match up to what you hope. Here's the money quote:

"The great attraction of holidays - that they take us out of our familiar surroundings - may also be their greatest drawback. People often feel less in control while on holidays. They can suffer a loss of status and feel lower self-esteem."

For what it's worth, my experience of holidays is always the direct opposite. My time is my own, and I have a carefully-accrued fund to spend as I wish. I swan around, feeling, for a few weeks, like a gentleman of means and leisure. And I hope you do too.