THE HOUSE OF WELLBEING

 

 

What is well being…?

 

How could it be measured…?

 

And, is there a need to be “measured…????????”

 

We just read that Britain is planning to adopt, at a national level, an index measuring people’s happiness.

 

What about an index measuring the NOT feeling well…????????

 

But maybe one index is its very opposite in disguise.

 

Indeed, why would Britain need such an index, if everything was fine…?

 

Usually we measure the height of the growing waters, or the growing blood pressure, or the growing cholesterol, when we fear they might become, indeed, dangerously high… should we infer that Cameron might be afraid that Britain’s level of happiness could become too high, or the very opposite…?!?

 

Whatever the reasons behind the thought of such a strange index, it is worth exploring what “well being” means.

 

The picture that was attached to the article recently published about this subject (the same picture as the one above) seems to advocate that well being is drinking “a glass” together with other people, themselves drinking “a glass” (or two, or…).

 

Dionysus, indeed, again and again… the God of Intoxication.

 

But the problem is that quite often being a disciple of the God of Intoxication is rewarded quite unfairly by being cranky (if not downright miserable) the very next morning.

 

So then, what is happiness…? And how would THE HOUSE OF WELL BEING look like…? And what would be its relation with its “twin” sister, THE HOUSE OF NOT BEING WELL…??????????

 

Let’s reflect on Britain’s somewhat strange new public concern before it becomes a general practice… it seems both Canada and France plan something similar, for now. Paris in particular would perhaps benefit from such an index, since its high level of psychological misery is notorious.

 

So please design THE HOUSE OF WELL BEING.

 

A sunny house, no doubt, unless one is a masochist.

 

A House with a veranda, or a porch, and a huge refrigerator, and comfortable, soft, huge beds, giant TVs in every corner, and a postal box where periodically giant checks would arrive, with plenty of money to spend… and, obviously, a well equipped cellar with myriad bottles of Dionysus’ preferred liquid, to help just in case the copious means mentioned above would not.

 

Design THE HOUSE OF WELL BEING.

 

And do not think, dear architect, of the dark wisdom of Dostoevsky who, in “Notes from the Underground,” claimed that human beings, once they build the Crystal Palace they tear it apart not much later, in order to build another one…!?!

 

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format to works@icarch.us. We will publish all of the on our website, www.icarch.us. There is no registration fee. The deadline is February 15th, 2011. If you have any questions please contact us.

 

Thank you,

 

ICARCH Gallery