The ever-clever Charlie Brooker produces a filthy, riotous recount of many of the points addressed by Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety. Tip of the hat to Open Culture.

There exist massive industries dedicated to convincing you that material possessions are the same thing as status which is the same thing as identity and those are arguably the two worst lies ever told.

Today is a great day to enjoy gratitude. There is sun and air and warmth and joy and balconies and burritos. There exist, seemingly solely for our pleasure, flowers and waterfalls; we create for ourselves incredible works of art and music and compel ourselves ever onward and ever upward. It is a great day to be alive, and so has been every single other day.

A little something I came across today. This has to do with priorities and the fleeting nature of pleasure.

I generally spend a lot of time thinking about happiness because it seems so ethereal yet it is of such incredibly vital importance to our well-being. Authors of self-help books peddle their pop-psychology wares, offering happiness at the turn of a page. As media consumers, you and I are constantly bombarded with people shouting at us that we can attain it if only we purchase this next gadget or this luxury car or become a Real Housewife of Your City Here. I think that such an important subject shouldn't be approached that way. You can't get to happiness--the real thing, anyway, the meaningful form of it--by slapping a band-aid on your life and calling it a day.

Here's a long but extremely illuminating video about the contrary nature of happiness by Alain de Botton. Its implications are many and profound.

Alain de Botton - On Pessimism from The School of Life on Vimeo.

To approach happiness on an above-the-individual level, though, you need suggestions about a public policy approach to it. For that I turn to the statistician Nic Marks, who has spent his adult life approaching human happiness from the broadest vista he can find.

Enjoy.