'A high flying, button-busting appetite for life characterized by high mood and high energy, often killed but not created by environment'. Being a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Kay Redfield Jamison explores the personality trait of exuberance in her latest book Exuberance: The Passion for Life. Essayist Mimi Harrison discovers her passion for life, and notes the ups and downs in Beyond Happy? Your Exuberant!. Noticing the general shift in art from early exhibits of euphoria to present portrayals of pessimism, James Poniewozik pleads westerners to look beyond commercial definitions of happiness in The Art of Unhappiness. By creating a false environment of happiness through mass medias materialism, westerners forget the real passion for life, left in a depressive state feeling dissatisfied and angry; perhaps Harrison's exuberance is the degree of true happiness beyond pleasure Poniewozik speaks of.

Frequently happy, usually playful...