Positive psychology

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Martin Seligman looks at what makes for true happiness. He identifies three categories: the pleasant life, the good life and the meaningful life. The pleasant life is characterised by pleasurable experiences which generate positive emotion. The good life involves engagement with life and a sense of flow - we feel at one with whatever we are doing, time seems stop and we experience intense concentration. The most lasting satisfaction of all comes from a meaningful life where we use our strengths in the service of something larger than we are. In this life flow and pleasurable emotions come as a by-product.

Figs contain particularly abundant amounts of fruit biochemicals called flavonoids which boost the levels of neurotransmitters in our brains. These biochemicals make our brains work better and produce a feel-good effect. Furthermore, in ancient times they triggered an effect whereby the pineal gland produced more of its own hormones. This changed the way our DNA was read so that our brains grew bigger and our sense of conscious awareness expanded. This may be the underlying reason why the tree has religious significance and is considered in some traditions to be the 'Tree of Life'. In fact the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha was said to be sitting when he was enlightened or 'awakened' was a banyan fig tree. The trees such as fig trees that made the most attractive fruit, that made the early humans feel good, would have been eaten more and their seeds more widely distributed, increasing the prevalence of these trees. This is the symbiotic relationship between humans and fruit trees, a connection we still sense today.