Last week, I attended the conference Happiness and Its Causes in San Francisco. There were dozens of speakers: doctors, psychologists, researchers, and Buddhist monks, to name a few.

Happiness, we now know, is not something that we must wait around to just "happen." Though the root of the word (the "hap" part) means "luck," neuro-science, psychology, and other fields now know enough to explain that happiness is a state that people can consciously work towards, that there are specific ways of going about it, and that these ways have measurable, repeatable results. The more you know about the subject, the less luck seems to be involved.

The Tone

Before even mentioning the subjects discussed, I'll say that the overall tone of the conference was a contrast to the Game Developer's Conference. The average maturity level was much higher, there were no slimy business deals happening all around me, and there was a general calmness and mutual respect that permeated the place. I saw valuables strewn about unattended, but we all knew that no one would actually steal anything here. Also, there were quite a few more Buddhist monks wandering around than the usual conference.

The topics were too wide-ranging to summarize here, especially considering that many speakers only captured the tip of the icebergs of their subjects. I've read many of their books, so I think the best way to deliver this information to you in a non-boring, distilled form is for me to write several articles over the coming weeks. But here's a quick roundup.

Venerable Robina

The mastermind behind the entire conference is a monk known as Venerable Robina. She's from Australia and organized this same conference in Sydney, then took it to the US. She's currently based in San Francisco where she runs the Liberation Prison Project. Venerable Robina explained that over 10 years ago, a prison inmate wrote to her asking for advice about life and about the mind.