This site has kept me busy. It has kept me so busy, in fact, that it looks like I haven't actually been working on it all. That's just how busy it's kept me.
If you look around, you'll notice some new things. They may be small, but they took an inordinately large amount of time to develop.
My dive into history continues – reading up on the history of emotions. Here's a comment on the rather unique history of Dandyism. Many dandies, apparently, were in the British military:
[T]he Duke of Wellington's officers, whilst maintaining a commendable sang-froid in the face of danger, even to the extent of being able to react to the loss of a leg as if it were hardly worth mentioning, were so concerned about maintaining their uniforms in immaculate condition as to want to meet the enemy carrying umbrellas."[i]
Bigger and Better
You may notice a line of buttons down the left side of the page, tastefully coordinated with the color scheme around the title, which will make it easier for you to pass what you find here on to anyone who might find it interesting.
You'll also find a few new articles.
I wrote Fifty Ways to be Happy as a way to help with emotional literacy. It defines and describes the different terms we have for happiness in English. There are a few more than fifty on the list, actually. In what ways are you happy? Take a look and give it a think.
You'll also find a review of a television show, Once Upon a Time which, of course, is bookended by "happily ever after." The program has an interesting take on happiness as being determined by morality. Although it looks Disneyfied on the surface, it actually reflects an old, deep set of American preoccupations – old enough to predate the Grimm fairytales and their Romantic-era sensibility.
I've also been busy making myself visible on social media – not something a private person is especially good at. But you can find and follow me now on Twitter (s_g_carlisle) and, as everyone else is shutting down their accounts, I've opened one on Facebook, which is very good to follow because it'll alert you when there's something new to learn about here.
And there's been a lot of the work done search-engine optimization, adding little bits of data behind the scenes to make the articles and reviews more appealing to Google and that one guy searching for "happiness" on Bing.
And that is something you shouldn't notice at all.
[i] Colin Campbell, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, p. 165