Headline, May 07 2025/ FINLAND: ''' HAPPY STUDENTS' HARPS '''

FINLAND: 

''' HAPPY STUDENTS' HARPS '''

! FIRST AND FOREMOST ! : THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY is the exclusive and eternal ownership of every Student of Finland, just as it is the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world.

'' Coming to Helsinki in February is an objectively weird choice,'' said a man named Mikko Tirronen. '' During this time, we don't have,'' he paused, '' colors '' I was sitting in a coffee shop with Tirronen, a  web developer and writer, after flying to Helsinki to think about Happiness.

FOR EIGHT YEARS RUNNING FINLAND HAS BEEN RATED THE HAPPIEST COUNTRY in the world by the World Happiness Report - started in 2012.

Soon after Finland shot to the top of the list, its government set up a '' happiness tourism '' initiative, which now offers itineraries highlighting the cultural elements that ostensibly contribute to its status : Foraging, fresh air, trees, lakes, sustainable produce and perhaps above all else, saunas.

Instead of adhering to one of these optimal itineraries of visiting Finland at the rosiest time of the year, I'd come, to Tirronen's bafflement, with few plans at all during one of the bleakest months. Would the happiest country in the world still be the mirthful at its gloomiest?

When I explained this, Tirronen recalled a quote by the Finnish author Jukka Viikila, '' Finland is a land where children/students play in darkness.'' The quote was both a metaphor and a descriptive statement, he suggested.

Because of the country's geographic coordinates, Finnish kids/students do indeed play in the dark a lot. To avoid being struck by vehicles, they clip reflective decorators, called heijastin, to their coats.

The reflectors come in all shapes : lemon, poodle, swan, hedgehog, soccer ball. Adults wear them too.

''I joke that going outside without my reflector is a way of inviting suicide,'' Tirronen said. '' If it happens, it happens.''

We were both drinking from small coffee cups, which are prevalent in Finland. Tirronen took a sip, emptying his cup.

'' My partner does not like this joke.''

My own happiness experiment was off to a poor start. I had arrived the day before, a Sunday afternoon, in a capsule of germs - a packed plane vibrating with sounds of coughing and phlegm management.

Monday dawned in sickness and jet lag. I dressed and left my icy little hotel room, stopping at a chain store called Normal for a bag of the region's signature treat : salty licorice.

Helsinki wore a hat of fog; you could see roughly 30 feet, about nine meters before all was concealed behind a pearly scrim.

After coffee with Tirronen, I went for an evening walk to the harbor, where black slicks of water twinkled between frozen floes. Helsinki's famous esplanade was empty in spring the central milkway becomes a riot of flowering crab apples and bare shoulders, but now the kiosks were shuttered, the trees skeletal, the paths plowed but untrodden.

On the way back to the hotel, I thought about something Tirronen had mentioned. Outside his apartment, he said, there stood a hideous mound of dirty snow streaked in mud and gravel.

He and his partner had joked about sending me a photograph of the mound as a pre-souvenir, a sardonic '' Welcome to Finland! ''

THERE ARE OBVIOUS problems with measuring happiness. Despite thousands of years of inquiry, nobody can agree on what happiness is : Is it a quantum of pleasure? The absence of pain?

The perception of purpose, hope, community? How does it relate to health or wealth or income? Is happiness a mood? A neuro-transmitter?

The first World Happiness Report was a 170-page PDF with a chart that ranked countries by happiness  Denmark came first, Finland second, Norway third. The United States was No. 11.

Since then, a new scorecard has been issued every year. The ranking are based on a single question from which a huge amount - an insane amount - is extrapolated. The question is called the Cantril Ladder.

Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you.

On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?  

FINLAND is firmly content. Assessing quality of life is a less enjoyable endeavour.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Beautiful and Great Countries, continues. The World Students Society thanks Molly Young.

With respectful dedication to Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - for every subject in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

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