Original subtitles

[birds chirping]

- Let's do this!

- Yeah.

I'll see you back at the cars.

Okay, here we go.

[overlapping chatter]

- There's no tension. We're okay.

You can feel the breeze, but it's cozy.

- It's cozy... - And a little cool.

- Okay. - Yes.

- It's a nice warm breeze from the Arctic Circle.

This is a show about happiness.

- Breathe in through the nose...

on three and out on six.

- As you can see...

I'm not exactly all smiles right now.

So how did I get here?

[high-pitched rewind whine]

[projector humming]

I grew up as a big-headed baby in Seattle,

moved to Nicaragua when I was three,

made friends with parrots and sloths.

Moved back to Washington State when I was five,

learned to play the bassoon.

Moved to Illinois and joined the drama club,

and eventually, I landed in Los Angeles

as Dunder Mifflin's Assistant to the Regional Manager.

- Please welcome Rainn Wilson.

- Rainn Wilson.

- Yet for all my success,

my wife and son, whom I love,

a nice house, people tattooing my face on their feet...

[beeping, whirring]

[sighs]

You'd think I'd be happier.

[upbeat music]

* *

But like so many others, I struggle...

to find fulfillment.

Amy.

To find true joy.

I need to be honest with you all.

It's just I've been going through

a really hard time recently

on a number of different levels,

and I've been feeling a little bit low,

a little bit less than, a little depressed

and humbled and lost these days.

* *

And so I've churned through countless therapists

and self-help books.

I've tried journaling and meditating.

And I tried this, whatever--

I don't even know what that is.

- Are you happy?

- I am happy.

I'm happier than I used to be.

- I even founded SoulPancake,

a media company focused on life's big questions.

[staticky channel changes]

And yet, life continued on autopilot.

Ecchh.

[staticky channel changes]

Happiness is out there,

hiding in some of the places you'd least expect.

What I want to know is, which places?

[Nicky Blitz' "Blast Off"]

- * Getting too close, better pull on back *

- What if I travel the world,

exploring what makes some places happier than others?

- * Need a one-two... *

- I'm looking at the ways that where we are...

- * Yeah, I'm a-comin', I'm a-comin' *

- Affect who we are.

- * Whoo, I'm a-comin' *

* I'm a-comin', yeah... *

- It's been said that the search for happiness

is the chief source of unhappiness.

- * I'm a-comin', I'm a-comin'... *

- Well, that's okay.

I'm already unhappy, so I've got nothing to lose.

- * Let's go *

* Let's all blast off *

[birds chirping]

[bells tolling]

[bouncy music]

For my first stop of this harebrained experiment,

I'm visiting a place that does happiness

as well as anywhere on Earth.

For a decade now, Iceland ranks as one

of the top five countries on the World Happiness Report.

The United States has never cracked the top ten.

A lot of people hear this and wonder, Iceland?

As in that island country

floating in the North Atlantic,

submerged in near-total darkness

and tongue-numbing cold?

[wind howling]

Yes, that Iceland.

But how the hell do you measure happiness?

It's complicated, but each year,

hundreds of thousands of people around the world

rate the quality of their lives

on a scale from one to ten.

Okay, so it's not really that complicated.

Is there any truth

to this so-called science of happiness?

Well, I intend to find out.

I'm here in Iceland's capital of Reykjavík

during the still pretty much freezing springtime,

wondering what alternative reality

I've stumbled into where--

[baby cooing]

It's a baby.

Where people leave babies unattended

and find joy in endless winter.

How do you find happiness against all odds?

Hi, Icelandic dog.

There are no strangers on this island of 370,000,

roughly the population of Cleveland.

So when you hit up your Icelandic actor friend

for a favor, he happily stands

in front of a tourist information booth

and pretends he just happened to run into you.

[horn honking]

- What? - Rainn?

- Icelandic cultural icon, actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

- Say what? - Hey, how's it going?

Oh, good to see you, man.

- So you could not find a smaller car?

- This is the smallest they got.

- Okay. - Yeah.

Here we go.

Raaah!

- Boom. - Hey.

- Sing. - No, no, thank you.

I'm not--I'm all right.

- Ólafur Darri Ólafsson is an iconic Icelandic actor,

and one of the most

joyful people I know.

He's like a 6'5" Viking teddy bear.

Don't you guys ever watch "Shark Week?"

I met him while filming "The Meg" a few years back,

and spoiler alert--= we both get devoured

by a massive mackerel shark from the Pliocene epic,

and we won't be reprising our roles in "The Meg 2."

- Do you-- because I almost always

get killed in everything I do.

- We're planning on killing you on this show, too.

I hope that's okay. - Absolutely.

I would expect nothing less.

[laughter]

So whenever you come to Iceland,

there's one thing all of us have in common.

- Okay. - We go to a hot springs.

- A hot springs.

Icelanders love their nature.

Around here, winter means being locked inside

for months on end, so they learned

not to take their surroundings for granted.

Look how beautiful this is.

- I wanna say you get used to it, but you don't.

[upbeat jazzy music]

This fjord, we're in a pretty massive fjord.

It's called Hvalfjordur, or whale fjord.

- You steer for a second. - Right.

So this is where we're going, huh?

- Yes.

- Mountains up ahead.

This is with Darri driving.

There's his hand. - Ha.

- There's his meaty little hand.

- Rainn, are you coming back?

You gonna take the wheel at some point?

- Um...at some point.

- This is fun. It's fun, though.

[sea birds calling]

You know, Rainn, if we wanna do this

the real old-school Icelandic way,

we really should drop our trunks.

- Just two... enormous, naked men.

- Yeah. Go au naturel.

- In a fjord? - Yes.

- All right. Let's do it. - Let's do it.

- Okay.

- Whoo! - Here we go.

[splash] - Oh, wow.

Ooh, it's a little stinky, right?

- It's a little stinky.

- Ahh... - That's the sulfur.

- Wow. We're in a bubbly, sulfuric,

Viking armpit.

I look around, I'm like, well,

I could be happy here. - Yeah.

- Anyone could be happy here. I mean, this is--

there's so much beauty.

- It's not something you get used to.

It knocks you on your feet almost every time,

any time you go into nature.

'Cause, you know, our capital city is the biggest city.

It has about half the population.

But you can be in the middle of nowhere in, like, 20 minutes.

- Yeah.

Are those birds gonna attack us?

- I think they like-- they don't like us being here.

- Intruders! Intruders!

- Turning into a Hitchcock movie fast.

This closeness to nature...

when I talk about nature, I mean the whole thing.

Like, the closest to the weather.

The weather will go from sunny to snowing

to sunny again to raining in one hour.

You know, you never know what's going to happen.

[thunder rumbles]

This is a very, very alive, as a country.

- Well, I love you saying, like, the land is alive,

'cause it really does feel that way.

There are hot springs. There are geysers.

There are waterfalls everywhere.

There's glaciers.

It's chockablock with glaciers. - Yeah.

- And active volcanoes.

Like, this is not a kind of a mellow landscape.

It's changing, evolving, moving.

- And I kind of like that.

It's a place you have to respect.

But if you treat it with respect, it is so rewarding.

- There's a concept in positive psychology,

the study of human happiness,

that explains the joy Icelanders derive

from the nature around them.

It's known as the biophilia hypothesis.

It says that on a genetic level,

human beings are happiest when we feel most connected

to other living things.

It's why we feel that sense of calm watching a sunset.

Or in my case...

scratching the bellies of Amy and Snorty,

my pot-bellied pigs.

It's a pig life.

Icelanders understand this, and the respect for nature,

its beauty, its volatility,

it forms the very foundation

of how they view the world around them.

- So we have a saying every Icelander knows,

which is [speaking Icelandic],

which is basically, ah, it'll work out.

And that comes with, I think,

having an environment that is constantly changing.

And I think that doesn't only come with

how you deal with nature,

but it becomes a part of your entire life.

If you decided that, you know, we're going to--

tomorrow we're gonna...get hay.

You know, we're gonna go and take hay and put in the barn.

But tomorrow, it's gonna be raining.

You just have to go and do something else.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. - And I think in Iceland,

that's what we do very often. - Mm-hmm.

- And I kind of love that adaptability.

- You talked about the changeability of the weather.

Since we started our conversation,

there is an icy, icy wind

coming from the north.

* [whistling] *

Adaptability.

It's an important first lesson as I begin my journey.

To understand happiness,

I'll need to embrace what comes my way.

- Hey!

- Aah!

[mellow music]

- Antifragile.

It's a term in mathematics used to describe systems

that actually thrive

when exposed to volatility and disorder.

Icelanders are the epitome of antifragile.

- My favorite Icelandic expression

is probably [speaking Icelandic].

- [repeating same expression]

- [repeating same expression]

It means, like, it will work itself out.

- [Icelandic expression]

Even on the verge of becoming roadkill,

Icelanders insist upon their unofficial national motto

that everything will work itself out.

- In the last month, didn't have a job,

but I knew it would just work out.

And now I have a job. So...it just works out.

- I'm struggling to buy into all of this

because I am wired to believe

that the worst is always lurking around the corner.

- Why do I think the world thinks

Iceland is one of the happiest--

- Oh, God. [laughs]

That's a heavy question.

I can imagine that people think that we are very happy here,

which we are, I assume.

- It's all about good marketing, I think.

- We just make our own happiness.

- Magic mushrooms... [chuckling]

definitely do their part.

- But Icelanders have no hallucinations of grandeur.

In a country where chaos

is always one volcanic eruption away,

plotting and planning to control anything in life

is so obviously a joke.

- This is a Roman helmet, right?

- Even the politicians are in on it.

- Isn't it? - Yeah.

I don't know if we're gonna be able

to take you very seriously in this interview...

- No? - While wearing that.

That's so ridiculous.

- You don't think I should be wearing it?

- Jón Gnarr.

- Jón Gnarr.

- Jón Gnarr.

- The world's coolest mayor.

His campaign began as a joke.

- Some thought it was a joke,

but at least one-third of the Reykjavík voters

thought differently.

[triumphant chords]

- Jón Gnarr is a cab driver turned playwright

turned comedian, who, in 2009,

successfully ran for mayor of Reykjavík.

Among his platforms

was his refusal to form a coalition government

with anyone who hadn't seen HBO's "The Wire."

- Inspired by a philosophy of nonsense,

Gnarr promised to get them a polar bear for the city's zoo.

- I actually think we need more humor in all aspects of life.

[triumphant music]

[laughing]

- Here we go. Allow me.

So, who better to don my Viking regalia alongside...

- You prefer a shorter axe?

- Oh, an axe, please. - Oh, yep.

- While exploring 1,100 years

of ridiculously graphic Icelandic bloodshed?

[dramatic music]

* *

- Wow.

- Yeah, so this is all pretty amazing.

- The Saga Museum is a lot like It's a Small World.

But instead of animatronic children singing in harmony...

[quirky music]

It's a bunch of murderous Vikings

hacking off each other's limbs.

Oh, here's another guy chopping another guy.

I'm going to just stay here.

- Oh, that's beautiful. - When some tourists come by,

I'm gonna scare the shit out of them.

Did the early settlers who came from Norway, I assume--

- And British Isles. Why did they come here?

- Yeah. Why? - Nobody knows.

- There is no word for "history" in Icelandic.

Instead, they have sagas, which just means stories.

So the history of Iceland

is just a hodgepodge of mythologies, tall tales,

and some actual history thrown in.

Aaaah!

- What is she doing with her boob?

- I'm not sure. - "Finding herself cornered,

"she took up his sword, opened her tunic,

and placed the blade against her naked breasts."

- Yes.

- "The strange but bold gesture"--

it is strange and bold. - Strange, but bold.

- "Put the natives to flight."

They were like, "No, don't cut off your boob!

Aah!" - Don't-don't do it!

Don't do it. - Wow.

What does this saga-ness reveal

about the modern Icelandic character?

- It's everything that is Icelandic.

To be able to survive here and live here

and find happiness here,

you have to be quite creative and inventive.

- Hmm. - Yeah.

Come up with stories,

something to entertain yourself and others.

One thing you have to realize about Iceland--

it is kind of like a cult.

Facts have never been that popular here, but fiction...

So we come up with alternative realities.

Otherwise, you lose your mind.

- I don't know if I've mentioned this,

but it's really hard to live here.

In the 1400s, Iceland was twice hit by the plague,

each time killing half of the country's entire population.

In 1783, the volcano Laki

erupted for eight straight months,

destroying most of the country's crops

and killing nearly a quarter of the people here.

For centuries, this constant turmoil

meant that reinvention

was the only means of survival in Iceland.

Farmers had to learn how to fish.

Fishermen had to learn how to farm.

And this legacy continues today,

in a slightly different form.

Well, this is fascinating, because you are kind of

the poster child for that adaptiveness.

- Yes.

- You started as a stand-up comic,

and then kind of almost as a joke

ran for mayor of Reykjavík. - Yeah.

- And served four years as mayor of this world capital.

Now, were you playing a character

when you were running for mayor,

or were you really yourself?

- In the beginning, I was playing a character.

- A fictional version of yourself.

A saga version of yourself. - Exactly.

- But it seems like a lot of Icelanders

have kind of multiple reinventions of themselves

and multiple realities. - Yeah.

- Someone can be a stockbroker

and also be in a heavy metal band.

- Yeah, and publish poetry. - Mm.

Because in America, you're really...

culturally, people want you to be on one track.

They kinda wanna know what you are.

Oh, you're an insurance salesman.

- Yes. Exactly. - You're a schoolteacher.

And people... it's pretty rare for people

to break out of that kind of track

they get kind of set into.

- To be able to survive here... - Mm.

- You have to be adaptive

because the country is quite unforgiving.

I have sometimes compared to being raised

by an alcoholic mother.

It's like, she's beautiful, you know?

But you never know... [laughter]

what's gonna happen. - Yeah.

* *

- Once upon a time in Iceland, reinvention was a necessity.

Today, though, it's evolved into trying your hand

at whatever the hell you feel like

because no one is judging you for it.

Failure doesn't carry a stigma in Iceland

because failure has always been a fact of life here.

- This guy was a Catholic. - Oh.

It makes me realize I'd be nowhere

if not for my own failures.

Crap plays an important role in my line of work.

It's fertilizer.

It allows the good stuff to grow.

And failing is the only way to know for sure

if you'd be happiest as an actor, as a cab driver...

I think it's time for your beheading.

Please.

Or as the mayor of a European capital.

I'm gonna cut off my breast!

- Oh, no! Don't do that. - Aha!

Run away! [laughing]

[birds twittering]

[engine humming]

[upbeat music]

* *

- This is Pálína Axelsdóttir Njarovík.

She lives and works in Reykjavík,

but for several months each year,

she heads a couple of hours east to Eystra-Geldingarholt,

where she and the rest of her family run a farm.

At this point, I've heard a lot about the resilience

of the Icelandic people.

But today, I'm going to witness firsthand

just what it takes to survive here,

and it's going to be... adorable.

[sheep bleating]

Hello.

- Hi, hi. - Am I in the right place?

- Yes. - Oh, this is amazing.

- Welcome.

This is Maria, my partner.

- Hi. "Mari-ah."

- Maria, yeah.

- Okay, wonderful.

I understand that there are lambs.

- There are lambs. - Many, many lambs.

- Yeah. - [giggling]

- So you know, May is lambing season.

- Okay.

- So the past few weeks have been very busy.

- Oh, wow. - We don't sleep much,

and we're here all day, every day.

- Well, I'm here to help, so put me to work,

whatever you need. - I will.

Are you ready? - I'm ready.

Bring on the lambs. [exhales]

"Silence of the Lambs."

Wait, that's a terrible reference.

[laughter] [lamb bleating]

- Oh, look at lambykins.

Hi, sweetie.

[bleating]

Hi, guys.

What's up?

High five.

High five.

Nothing? Leave me hangin'?

What an asshole.

[bleating]

- Let me show you my favorite lamb.

She is...

- Oh, hi. - Kind of cute.

- Oh, she's adorable.

Hi, sweetie. Hi.

- You can name her, if you want.

- It's like a kitty cat. - Yeah.

- I can name her? - Yeah.

- I'm going to name her...

Bjork.

- Bjork? - Yeah.

I think I can just end my journey now.

Happiness is naming 300 baby sheep

after Icelandic pop stars.

Is he going to bite my face?

- Let's see. - N--hey!

But then I realized why lambing season

is an around-the-clock, totally exhausting,

all hands on deck family affair.

I wish the cameras could pick up how bad this smells.

- [laughing] - Smells like shit.

- Does your family do all of this work?

- My uncles run the farm.

I always make sure that I have lambing season off

because I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

- See you later, guys.

[bleating]

So this farm, how long has it been in your family?

- I think I'm the seventh generation.

- And Icelanders have been raising sheep for...

- Since we got here. - Yeah.

- The sheep has literally kept us alive

through the centuries.

Through the cold winters, they provided both meat and wool.

- That's what strikes me as an American,

coming over here, where, yes, we have

traditions that go back, you know,

150 years or something like that.

But I'm not connected, either to my land or my property

or to my traditions in the same way.

- Well, I feel, firstly, just lucky that somehow my branch

of the family ended up here.

- It's amazing coming here because I just

grew up in Reykjavík, and it's so amazing

to get to know this life. - Right.

- I feel it's a privilege to have grown up here.

That's something that I would love my children

to experience, and that is one of the reasons

that I would never consider, you know,

not having a life here as well. - Yeah.

[light music]

* *

Theories abound as to why cold climates

produce happier people than warm ones.

My favorite might well be called

the "get along or die" theory.

In warm places, it says, your next meal simply

falls from a coconut tree.

In colder places, people must band together

to ensure a good harvest,

or else everyone dies... together.

- This is a cup of tea for you.

- Oh, thank you.

- For Pálína, her mother Siggy and her father Axel, a pastor,

this interdependence doesn't just explain their survival

on this frozen tundra.

It may also explain their happiness.

What a beautiful Icelandic kitchen.

I understand this farm has been in your family

for six or seven generations, back to the mid-1800s.

What was life like?

- Well, I think it didn't change for centuries.

I think the most changed were in my parents'

and grandparents' life.

- Mm-hmm.

- To survive here, you had to be able to tolerate

the day-to-day life.

- And you have to stock up with food in the autumn,

and that food needs to last the whole winter.

And the winter is long.

- So we still do that in a way.

You know, for the slaughter season, we take meat home,

and we fill our freezers

enough that it will last us for a year.

- So this is all nice.

Oh, it's so idyllic. Everyone's so happy.

We're hard-working and we're resilient.

Where are the struggles? Where are the difficulties?

- I think it's very difficult to be a human being.

That's key number one. - Amen, brother.

- It doesn't really matter where on Earth you live.

There is no formula to be happy or successful in life.

And if you are lucky, lucky enough

to have people around you to help you,

that's the key thing.

- Yeah.

The faces on this farm have changed through the years,

but one constant remains--

family.

So this game is called kubbar.

We humans need one another to survive, so we cooperate.

Oh, come on. I was robbed.

At some point, though, the needing fades,

and all that remains is cooperation.

We help each other because we can,

not because we're counting on some future payback.

There's a word for this.

- Oh! - Oh!

Love.

I come from a pretty unhappy family,

and a very particular kind of unhappiness.

And to witness the warmth and love

of that family, the acceptance,

it was really touching.

It was incredibly moving to me.

Here they come! Amazing.

Yes!

Come on!

I'm in awe of Pálína and her family.

I didn't grow up with any of this.

My birth mother left when I was two.

My dad and step-mom divorced

the instant I went away to college.

So when I see what Pálína and her family

built for themselves, I'm both envious

and so grateful for the experience.

Who wants a--

[sheep bleating]

Oh, sorry. I got milk in your eye.

Hi. Everyone gets a milk.

You get a milk, and you get a milk, and you get a milk.

And you get a milk.

Why are you nursing from my elbow?

[animals bleating]

- I'm beginning to understand this place.

[mellow rock music]

Folks here support each other.

They're unusually comfortable getting naked with friends

in a cauldron of magma.

But what would it be like if I actually lived here?

* *

I need the perspective of someone who, like me,

started off as an outsider.

- You're going to the left here.

Yeah, it's kind of a little street

because we're almost there.

Into this parking lot.

- I'm trusting the navigation skills of Jewells Chambers,

a Brooklyn native who moved here six years ago

after marrying an Icelandic psychologist.

That's a big move from dating and loving

this Icelandic therapist, and, like, I'm going to

move to Reykjavík. - Yeah.

I've been very fortunate, and I've loved it.

And I've had such a great time, like,

getting some insight about Icelandic families

and all these things.

- I am so thrilled to be talking to you.

You're like the Icelandic expert.

- I wouldn't say that, but I definitely feel like

I have a unique perspective.

- Jewells shares her insights on her social media channels--

All Things Iceland.

- Here are five habits of Icelanders

visitors might find strange.

- Today we're puttering around Reykjavík on a...

- Ísbíltúr. - Ísbíltúr.

- Yeah.

- Or ice cream road trip.

The description is epic, the company is great,

and Jewells is convincing me

that, despite my early resistance to the idea,

everything will work itself out.

So you've been here almost six years.

How do you feel that this place has affected you?

- I definitely find myself being a lot more flexible.

So Icelanders have this saying called [Icelandic expression].

And when I first heard it, I was kind of annoyed.

I'm not going to lie.

So it basically means that everything will work out.

And I used to think or feel that this meant

that you didn't put in any effort.

You're gonna turn right here. - Okay.

- But over time, I started to understand

that you are doing all the things that you can do,

but you have to let go of control.

- Right. - And it will just work out.

It just comes into place. - It's kind of like

the Serenity Prayer in action. - Yeah.

- What is in your control, and what is out of your control.

- Exactly.

You know, I was coming from a place

where I was just always like, we have to do this.

It has to be like this. You know, it was so rigid.

And I find myself having loosened up

and being more in tune with

it's okay if it doesn't work out

the way that I want to, but it still worked out fine.

And I feel like that, for me, opened up

this creativity that I was a little bit holding back on.

And that's actually how my podcast came about.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to All Things Iceland.

I still get to keep where I come from,

and how it helped to shape me. - Yeah.

- But then I also get to absorb different things.

And you know, as I learn, I teach.

- Where am I going here? - You're going to the right.

- Okay.

- All right.

Come on, come on, come on.

* Da da da da *

- At last, the ice cream in the ice cream road trip.

- Hello. - How are you?

- I'm good. How are you?

- What's the most Icelandic flavor you got?

- It would probably be the licorice.

- You don't have, like, raw seal meat

or whale blubber ice cream? - [laughing]

- I hate to be the one to break it to them,

butísbíltúr is basically just driving to get dessert.

Oh, my God. It's the size of a human head.

But Icelanders take their ice cream very seriously,

so they gave it a legendary name.

Oh, and more sauce on top?

Cheers.

- Skál! - Skál!?

- Mm-hmm. - Fantastic.

- So I'd love to hear what you think of

your Lakkris Lakkris. - All right, here we go.

This is licorice ice cream with licorice nibs,

licorice powder, and licorice sauce.

Wow.

Wow.

- Amazing, huh?

- That's incredible.

So are you a long hauler?

You gonna stay in Iceland?

- Yeah. I get this question often

because people are like, why do you call yourself an expat?

Are you staying there? And I'm like, you're right.

I have to change from expat to immigrant

because I do plan on staying here forever.

I don't see a reason to ever move back.

- You don't want to go back to the United States?

- Not permanently.

I love living in Iceland.

And that freedom that I was telling you about,

in terms of being able to express myself

and feeling safe.

Being a woman, I feel very safe in Iceland.

And being a Black woman, I feel very safe.

Now granted, I'm not saying people don't have experiences

of being discriminated against or racism.

I know of people, personally,

who people have said things to them.

But I have never heard it directly, and, you know,

knock on wood, I hope that never happens.

- So that must be such a relief.

- It is. It is. When I first got here,

of course, I knew that I looked different than everybody,

or the majority of people.

And I definitely had people staring at me pretty long,

especially in, like, the suburbs,

where they normally don't see people who look like me.

But I felt very welcomed.

Like my Icelandic family, meeting my husband's family

has been so welcoming to me.

And I love that, and I feel like part of the family.

I think for me, it's just been very freeing

to not walk around feeling like I'm this Black chick.

I'm just--I'm just Jewells from New York City,

who gets to enjoy Iceland and talk about it.

- Jewell's experience is, of course, her own.

Iceland is not without its social issues.

But in a country so close knit

that nearly everyone is related to one another,

her acceptance here is inspiring.

You're making a mess.

- [laughs]

- It's tempting to pick up your life

and move somewhere else.

I won't be hitting the reset button anytime soon,

but it's a nice thought.

For Jewells, happiness in Iceland

is as simple as finding a place

where she can be herself.

- Blue Lagoon. - Blue Lagoon.

- Fun time. - Always.

- I can't imagine anything more powerful than that.

- I can certainly see how Jewells found

her artistic spark in Iceland.

This is an exceptionally creative place.

They even hold the per capita record

for inventing per capita statistics about themselves.

- Iceland has the most everything per capita.

Nobel Prize winners.

- Neither of these is true.

- Pretty sure it's billionaires.

- Also not true.

- Beer drinking per capita.

- Beer drinking per capita.

- [laughing]

- Not true, but also not so far off.

- Writers. There are a lot of writers.

- Okay, that one is true.

There are more artists and writers per capita

in Iceland than any other country on Earth.

One in ten Icelanders will publish a book.

Another fun Icelandic statistic--

surveys have consistently found

that more than half of Icelanders believe in elves.

- Well, you can't really see them,

but I do believe it's because some kind of source there,

some kind of element of, like, a type of magic,

kind of.

- My grandfather, he was actually saved by an elf.

- I don't know where all the foreigners get the idea

that we all believe in elves. We don't.

- Yeah, I have no idea

where we would have gotten that from.

- And he was playing by the ravine.

He almost falls into the ravine,

but he feels like as if he's been grabbed

and sort of pulled away.

- It's something out there.

We don't know what it is. It could be elves.

It could be ghosts.

It could be nothing, so it's difficult to say.

- Clearly, this is a place with unlimited imagination.

But the mind-blowing thing is Iceland,

thanks to centuries of only focusing on survival,

is inventing much of its culture now.

And that's where the young folks come in.

[mellow music]

* *

Five years ago, Fonn and her cousins, Eir and Asa,

formed the gothic rock trio Ateria,

combining their training in classical music

with lyrics about everyone's favorite source

of omega-3 fatty acids-- cod liver oil.

But the youth of Reykjavík are the first to admit

that Iceland, for all its creativity and whimsy,

is not without its struggles.

[tuning instruments]

What does the name mean?

- Our grandparents, they have, like,

an eider duck nesting that take care of every summer.

They watch it so that the fox doesn't get into the nest.

- Wow. - Yeah. And so the Latin name

of the eider duck is Somateria mollissima.

And so we took Ateria from that.

- Boy, you Icelanders have the weirdest hobbies.

Like, our family hobby is protecting

the nest of the eider duck.

[laughter]

- What's life like as a disaffected punk rock youth

in suburban Reykjavík?

- I mean, I guess we have other stuff to worry about.

Like we take the most antidepressants

per capita in the world.

- You heard that correctly.

Iceland, one of the reportedly happiest places on Earth,

takes more antidepressants than any country in the world,

and it's really not even close.

- There are a lot of people who have seasonal depression.

- Okay.

- Because of the darkness, yeah, in winter.

- Do you have friends that have struggled with depression,

anxiety, suicidal?

- I have struggled with depression and anxiety.

- Yeah. Me, too. [laughs]

- There's a lot of culture in Iceland

that you always have to be doing something,

and everything you do, it has to have a purpose.

- Right.

- And so if you're depressed, you're just lazy.

- Mmm. - And you're just--

- So there's a cultural stigma against depression.

You should be out there

safeguarding this eider duck's nest this winter

instead of sitting around

feeling sorry for yourself or something.

- And like, I think that talking about how you feel

is a pretty recent thing here. - Yeah.

- We're big fans of suppressing our emotions,

big fans of ignoring trauma.

And the conversation, it has started.

It is starting.

- Yeah, but I think we have a long way to go.

- We definitely do. - Yeah.

- We all need a means of coping.

Fortunately, the band members of Ateria

found a unique form of artistic expression.

Perhaps my favorite Ateria song

is one that you guys wrote about cod liver oil...

[laughter]

The national beverage of Iceland,

which, when I was googling its effects,

it actually said it had mental health benefits

and reduces anxiety and depression.

Cod liver oil. - Yeah.

You take one spoon of it each morning,

and then you follow it up with something else

because it's disgusting.

- What song is that, the cod liver oil song?

- [speaking Icelandic]

- Of course. Of course that's it.

[gothic rock playing]

As someone who has dealt with his share of depression

beginning in my teens and rearing its ugly head

time and time again in the years to come,

I understand how difficult it can be to talk about.

* *

- [singing in Icelandic]

- It's a sobering reminder that even

in the supposedly happiest of happy places,

life is never just a montage of stunning landscapes

and cuddly sheep.

It's hard, no matter where you live.

[classical melody]

* *

[end chords]

- Mm--

[laughter]

Almost. I couldn't quite finish it.

Amazing, you guys. That was incredible.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So livery.

I'm sorry, did I get oil on your hands there?

Here, let me.

[laughter]

Chatting with Ateria humanizes this place,

and suddenly this whole quest for happiness

doesn't feel like such a lonely endeavor.

Whoo!

Yes! I will accept your request to join the band.

[peaceful music]

* *

- This is Margarét Liefsdóttir and Tinna Thorlacius.

These are the faces of my torturers.

[upbeat music]

* *

[singing in Spanish]

* *

- You see, three times per week, these lifelong pals

join with 70 of their closest friends

to go for a swim in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic.

* *

They claim it's a physical healer and a mental cleanser.

* *

- They call their squad of ocean swimmers...

which translates to "Happier You."

[music continues]

* *

[birds chirping]

And what could possibly be happier

than waking up at the crack of dawn,

dipping into these

40-something-degree Arctic waters

with a group of insane Icelandic women,

followed by a near total freeze of my Netherlands?

[bluesy guitar music]

* *

- [speaking Icelandic]

- Hello!

- Whoo!

Hi! - All right, let's do this!

- Whoo-hoo! - Good to see you.

All right! - Ohh...

Oh ha ha... - How you feeling?

- [whimpering]

Uh, I don't want to be this cold.

I want to drink hot chocolate,

and, um... - I feel you, yeah.

- I-I'm scared. - Okay.

- Okay. Okay. - It's okay.

- Your only goal now is to go in this ocean and surrender.

But if you tell your body, "I'm okay..."

because you--with your nervous system and your hat,

you control everything what your body wants to do.

- [laughs] okay. My nervous system and my hat.

- Mm-hmm. - Okay, good. I love it.

- So now we're going to just concentrate on

emptying our minds, and be...

- That's easy for me. - Present.

And what we're going to do is just we're

going to close our eyes now, and we're going to breathe in

through the nose. [inhales]

Hold the breath a little bit, and then release.

[exhales] - [exhales]

- And we're going to do our normal warming up.

Tell the body and the nervous system

that we are going to do something very challenging.

So we breathe in the nose. [inhales]

[rapid inhales, exhales]

Okay. And we start.

[inhaling and exhaling]

Way up here.

We breathe in and we stretch out, look up in the sky,

and then--whoo! - Whoo!

- Whoo! - Whoo!

- Woo! - [laughs]

[inhaling and exhaling]

- Whoo! - Whoo!

And one more!

[inhaling and exhaling]

- Whoo! - Whoo!

- Yes! Let's do it!

- Yeah! - Let's go for it!

- All right!

Here we go, ladies!

I'll see you back at the cars.

[laughter]

- It's at this precise moment

that a harsh reality finally sets in.

For all of my wisecracking, I'm actually a little scared.

- You can feel the breeze,

but it's cozy and a little bit warm.

- It's cozy. Okay. - Yes.

- The nice warm breeze from the Arctic Circle,

just a few dozen miles north of here.

This is probably going to suck.

I'm a total wimp around this stuff,

and I wanted to ask you--

why?

Why do this?

- Because you can.

- Okay.

Weirdo. - [laughs]

- It's a good question.

It's actually a great question.

- Why do you do this?

- A friend of mine got me to try it once.

And I came out-- I don't drink alcohol,

but I came out so high on life that I did--

I-I was amazed. - Yeah.

- I think for me, at least, I think it's about stepping

out of my comfort zone.

And when we go in the sea, then it is difficult,

and it's always a challenge.

Even though Margarét and I are very used to

go in the sea now,

and we go three times a week,

it's always a bit of a challenge.

But then you think, I am doing this.

I am going to do it, and, um, there's nothing changing that.

I'm here, I'm doing it.

Then you can transfer that

onto so many other things in life

that are difficult or challenging.

[suspenseful music]

- Everyone's ready?

[all singing in Icelandic]

* *

[singing continues]

[moody music]

- The main task is to surrender to the cold.

- And now we're going to calm the system again.

Breathe in on three.

Out on six, and we go in.

- Ooh.

- [exhales]

- Ah. - And we're breathing.

- And the second was to say to your body,

"I'm okay."

- I know for me, I have--

literally have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

Like, I am a highly anxious person.

And there's work that I do on a daily basis

that helps bring me kind of to--

vaguely within normal.

So it was--for me, I had a lot of resistance of like,

oh, I can't believe I have to do this.

It's early in the morning. It's cold outside.

But I found it so, uh, uplifting.

* *

- So guess how long you've been in the water.

- How long have I been in the water?

- Guess. 3:40.

- 3:40? That's crazy!

[laughter] Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! [women cheering]

Aah! I love it, I love it!

I feel invigorated in a really new and positive way.

And honestly, it didn't feel that cold.

- All this ocean dipping is also about just letting go.

And it's funny, because in Iceland,

it gets dark in the winter, and often we have bad weather.

And you can complain about the weather

all the time if you want.

But when you do ocean dipping the whole year,

you don't even notice that it gets dark.

You don't even notice that the weather is bad.

It just does not matter.

- Let's go again!

Are you two happier

than when you started this 15 years ago?

- 100%.

- Definitely, yeah.

- I just--I could not imagine life without

going in the sea every week.

- And not just happier, because it's, like, a word.

And then you says--

then you think, what does it mean?

It means that you are healthy.

It means that you can cut through difficulties.

It means that you are able to enjoy life

just the way you are, and nothing else matters.

- Aah! - Aah!

[cheering]

[upbeat music]

* *

[cheering]

- Woo!

- Whoo!

[cheering]

* *

- Hey, Bliss Heads.

It's me, Rainn, sitting in my hotel room in Reykjavík.

Um, what an incredible day.

I had a lot of anxiety going up to, like,

you're gonna be jumping into

an ice-cold North Atlantic Ocean.

I mean, I knew it was going to suck.

I didn't know that it was gonna be

a really transformative morning.

It was beautiful.

And it's a lot more than just cold swimming.

It's about overcoming obstacles,

and healing, and celebration.

[light music]

* *

When I first arrived in Iceland,

I was skeptical that a place as remote as this

could legitimately be such a happy one.

Signa, any thoughts on happiness?

Happiness is subjective, of course.

You're making a mess here.

- [laughs]

- But in the same way you a good meal when you taste it--

- Whoo! - Yay!

- You know a happy place when you visit it.

Oh, look at that.

Look at that. That's ridiculous.

Look at that.

For my final day in Iceland,

Darri has been gracious enough to invite me

and my motley crew of ice swimmers

and former mayors, sheepherders,

and indie rockers to one last feast.

- Did you meet old Lamb Boy as well?

- I met Lamb Boy, yep.

Mm-hmm.

If I've learned anything from my time here,

it's that happiness, at least some small fraction of it...

Oppa!

Skál!

Is a matter of choice.

[glass tinkling]

- Hey-hey!

Hey, guys.

Thank you so much for coming and being here with us.

Cheers. And Rainn--

I think Rainn's gonna say a few words.

Oh. [laughs]

[laughter] Cheers.

- "Skál,"I believe you say.

Skál.

Uh, I just want to thank all of you.

Darri and Lovisa, thank you for having us

in your beautiful home.

And, you know, it's been an incredible adventure

in Iceland, and I've learned so much, you know,

about what we're searching for.

We're searching for something larger than ourselves.

And in the spirit of the great quest

for ice cream, the ísbíltúrof Iceland,

it's not about the destination.

It's about the journey along the way.

So once more, Skál!

- Skál. - Skál.

- Ladies and gentlemen, Bjork.

[laughter]

- The lamb or the musician?

- The lamb that's in your sandwich.

Yes.

[guitar music]

* *

- [singing in Icelandic]

- So this guy kept approaching our director,

offering to play a song at the party,

and eventually, she gave in.

* *

- As it turns out, his name is Hreimur,

and he is an extremely popular singer-songwriter in Iceland.

And literally every person there knew this song.

- [continues singing]

- As I said...

- Come on!

- There are no strangers in Iceland.

[all singing]

* *

Nietzsche tells us that the measure of a society

is how well it transforms pain and suffering

into something worthwhile.

Not how a society avoids pain and suffering,

but how it transforms it into something useful.

Happy, even.

* *

Faced with a brutal climate and utter isolation,

Icelanders could easily have chosen despair.

* *

But instead, these hardy descendants of Vikings

peered into the unyielding darkness of the midnight sky

and chose a different option:

happiness.

It is, I think, the wiser option.

Besides, what else is there to do in the dark?

- Yeah!

[all cheering]

- [whistles] - Whoo!

[applause]

- Now that I've seen one of the world's happiest places...

Merci! - Bye.

- I wonder, what does it mean to live in an unhappy place?

But where should I go?

[sighs]

[mid-tempo music]

The lowest-ranked countries on the Happiness Report

say more about the nature of war

than about the nature of happiness.

Their misery is easily diagnosed.

No. I need a place with a particular variety of gloom

which, much like my own, is harder to define.

[knocking on door] Uh, hello?