I hope you're not totally unfamiliar with the story of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". You may know it was written by a thirty-something Victorian mathematician by the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, (who used the pseudonym 'Lewis Carroll', as we all know). There is a scene which sticks out to me in "Alice", that I'd like to share. The Cheshire cat. Alice runs into this character en route on her adventures. He presents himself to her initially as simply a very wide grin, hovering in the air. The rest of the cat's body arrives a little bit later.
Around the time of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell and the Cheshire cat, a philosopher was cooking up a rather revolutionary idea. Simply put, and just as it was with the Cheshire cat, the grin comes first - - then everything else. This philosopher's name was William James and he believed precisely that - that when we smile, the grin comes first and the happiness second. Now this sounds a little like nonsense, probably. Victorian, Carroll-esque nonsense. But James was convinced that when we're talking about emotions and their physical expression, we smile first and our smiling face tells our brain that we are smiling, and as it knows smiling means happiness, our brain makes us happy. Common sensically, it's always the other way around. Namely, we feel happiness and then we smile because we are happy. The emotion precedes the physical response. James thought the opposite. I don't know, unfortunately, which side won out. In the historical scheme of things, William James isn't too well known, so we might assume that at least in a popular sense, common sense prevailed.
Nevertheless, I don't quite buy that James was wrong. Why? I remember reading something written quite some time after James, something by C.S. Lewis (of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" fame) -- a book called "Mere Christianity". (Now, don't get scared off because some religion is entering the fray. It isn't.) Mr. Lewis states at one point that if you're feeling down, turn the frown upside down literally, and keep it there for several minutes and you'll become happy! This sounds maudlin, but it's true. I've tried it. And it works. Curiouser and curiouser!
James was right, only his theory takes longer to manifest itself. I would agree that when one is happy, we smile as a response to that. But I also believe if we are to put a smile on our face - and it needn't be a Cheshire-cat-sized super-grin, even a slight smile will work - within several minutes we will start to feel better and even get a little happy.
I like outsiders like William James because he, like Lewis Carroll, were rebels and chose to look at things differently. I also like C.S. Lewis for saying something, years and years after James, that is still basic biological truth.
So, if it moves thee, flip a frown around and get a little happier, however nonsensical that may sound.
:) Cheers!
