Ingrid Fetell Lee

The architect Emmanuelle Moreau uses this idea in her work a lot, where she uses these multicolored spheres to create a feeling of abundance.

And what about all those round things I noticed?

Well, it turns out neuroscientists have studied this too.

They put people into fMRI machines and they showed them pictures of angular objects and round ones.

And what they found is that the amygdala, a part of the brain associated in part with fear and anxiety, lit up when people looked at angular objects, but not when they looked at the round ones.

They speculate that because angles in nature are often associated with objects that might be dangerous to us, that we evolved an unconscious sense of caution around these shapes, whereas curves set us at ease.

You can see this in action in the new Sandy Hook Elementary School.

After the mass shooting there in 2012, the architects, Svigals plus partners, knew that they needed to create a building that was secure, but they wanted to create one that was joyful, and so they filled it with curves.

There are waves running along the side of the building and these squiggly canopies over the entryway, and the whole building bends toward the entrance in a welcoming gesture.

Each moment of joy is small, but over time, they add up to more than the sum of their parts.

And so maybe instead of chasing after happiness, what we should be doing is embracing joy and finding ways to put ourselves in the path of it more often.

Deep within us, we all have this impulse to seek out joy in our surroundings.

And we have it for a reason.

Joy isn't some superfluous extra.

It's directly connected to our fundamental instinct for survival.

On the most basic level, the drive toward joy is the drive toward life.

Thank you.