[children chattering, laughing]
[cheerful music]
* *
- Hello!
Hey, children. How's it going?
I understand maybe it's somebody's birthday.
Now, when I say happiness to you guys, what comes to mind?
I've been all over planet Earth
searching for the secrets to happiness.
Here's some-- - Guinea pigs.
- Here's--guinea pigs? What else makes you happy?
What makes you happy?
- Also guinea pigs. - Also guinea pigs, OK.
I'm getting a theme going here. What else?
But maybe it's much simpler than I'm making it out to be.
For inspiration, I've turned
to a particularly unfiltered bunch.
Ice cream and robots?
OK, what else?
- Like, something--like, something like a bird caucus.
- Like a bird caucus?
- Yeah!
- I think a bird caucus sounds really interesting.
I'm not sure what that is. - [laughing]
- I always say that!
- [laughs]
- Oh, that made you happy!
Oh, my God, this is gonna be the greatest party ever.
Go!
Bird caucus?
Bird caucus.
Yeah.
Eureka!
Bird caucus.
[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 OK.
I'm already unhappy, so I've got nothing to lose.
- * Let's go *
* Let's all blast off *
[soft music]
* *
- And just like that, I'm home.
Now that I'm back, I'm shocked at how easily
I've fallen into my same habits...
[sighs]
My exact same routines.
But this time, I'm brandishing a world's worth
of happiness insight, and I'm eager
to see how it all translates to life as I knew it.
[upbeat jazz music]
* *
Excuse me. Coming through.
Thanks. Hey, hey.
OK.
* *
I moved to LA from New York in 1999.
My wife, Holiday, and I packed up a Chevy cargo van
in pursuit of the Hollywood dream--
a dilapidated apartment in Koreatown
that smelled like cat piss.
[horns honking]
[upbeat music]
- It's really stressful living in a city
where it's kind of overpopulated and there's,
like, noise pollution all the time.
- People move here, generally, with a lot of expectation.
- I think all of us, as transplants,
we come here to find our happy.
And we quickly learn that it is a hustle.
- In LA, paradise comes with its own unique pressures.
When every day is 75 and sunny,
life screams at you, "Be happy, damn it!"
High five, high five.
Yet the Los Angeles 2020 Commission report
estimated that 40% of Angelenos are miserable.
- It can sometimes be a little bit depressing
to find out that it's not exactly how
it's portrayed in the movies.
- Life will knock you down no matter where you live,
but especially here.
* *
- Oh, I'm turning too much.
But thanks to my travels, I'm seeing LA's untapped potential
for the first time.
I'm also seeing my own untapped potential.
So how can I find happiness in my own backyard?
- Hey, look. Rainn's pretending to barbecue.
[laughter]
- Are you barbecuing?
- I am, for you.
Hey. How's it going?
- Do you know how to use it? - Barely, barely.
* *
Meet Justin Baldoni and Jamey Heath.
You might recognize Justin from his role
as Rafael on the series "Jane the Virgin."
And Jamey is a well-known music and film producer.
Together, they cohost the "Man Enough" podcast.
- We have a very special guest today,
my dear friend, Mr. Rainn Wilson.
- And as two of my closest friends,
they know me better than most anyone.
- When did you get back?
- I got back three days ago from Thailand.
- It's definitely not ready to flip.
- I know, I know.
- Honestly, let Justin do it. It's not ready to flip.
- You're so controlling. - No, but you're flipping.
- Really, you want to take it? - Yeah, please.
- OK, go ahead, go ahead. - Let me do it.
I mean, if we want it to be edible, you know.
- [laughs]
- Did you find some happiness there?
- Honestly, this was the most incredible trip of my life.
- Notice how he asked us to meet here in LA.
- Real friends would have said, meet us in Thailand.
- You didn't get the invitation?
I invited you to bathe elephants with me in Thailand.
- Absolutely not. - You didn't get that?
I didn't want to take my shirt off next to you.
These look done.
That is perfectly done.
- Yours would have not looked anything like that.
- I made an excellent choice handing over the spatula.
- No, that wasn't your choice. That was actually my idea.
- Has Holiday noticed a change?
When you came back, did she say you were happier?
- Uh, it's been three days.
Give me a break.
No, no change yet.
But the journey is not yet complete.
- So you go down to Thailand, Iceland,
places that have a lot of culture,
or at least culture compared to here.
Now you're back here in LA.
- In a cultureless void of Los Angeles.
- Like, what do you do?
How do you go, like, bathe an elephant
or do an Icelandic thing in water--
like, what do you do here in LA?
- I don't know.
We haven't figured that out yet.
- Go to the zoo?
- More importantly for you guys,
Jamey, you've lived here for how long?
- My life.
- And you've been here 20 years at least.
- I was born here. So yeah, most of my life.
- So in the most materialistic, status-obsessed place
in the country, one of the unhappiest places
in the United States--
even though there is a pretty high standard of living--
what's your take on LA and finding happiness in LA?
- I think LA sells you on the American dream, right?
This idea of, if you just do this or accomplish this,
then you will be happy.
- Mm-hmm. - Right?
If you get enough followers on Instagram or TikTok,
or if enough people watch this show--
only to find that the more you get,
the less happy you are
and the farther you are from it.
- I think you do experience happiness,
but you obviously admit that you struggle with it.
- Mm-hmm.
- And I'm surprised, because it's all
right there in front of you.
It's right here.
- All the ingredients are there.
- But isn't that one of the hardest parts about it,
is that you know it's right there--
- Yeah.
- And it feels like it's just out of reach.
- It's funny you say that.
Because every place I went, I was kind of like,
I could be happy here.
- Which, when you're traveling the world,
you're also going to some places that don't have
the same level of intersection of capitalism,
and materialism, and status, and all of these things.
So the question is, like, how do you take what you
learned traveling the world--
- Mm-hmm. - And go apply it to this?
* *
- This is why it's important to invite friends over
to cook meals for you--
perspective.
I've only ever experienced one version of Los Angeles,
the version where fame and fortune are said
to be the very height of what any of us can achieve.
But I want an altogether different LA experience.
I mean, there must be some happy people
living here, right?
So let's find them.
Thanks for coming over.
Justin, thank you for cooking us lunch today.
- Thanks for having me over to cook you lunch.
- Could I have some teriyaki chicken for dinner?
- [laughs]
[birds chirping]
[upbeat music]
* *
- Hola. - Hola.
- Tres tacos, por favor.
Chatting with Justin and Jamey makes me wonder
how I can apply everything I learned on the road
to life back home.
This journey's been about stepping outside
my comfort zone, yet there's so much
I don't know about my own hometown.
It's like we're all too busy sitting in line
at In-N-Out Burger to learn even the basic history
of this place.
Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish in 1781,
who claimed it from its original inhabitants,
the Chumash and Tongva peoples.
In 1821, Mexico achieved independence from Spain,
and soon after, America waged its war with Mexico,
taking California as its own.
There were gold rushers, oil barons,
20,000 Chinese immigrants building a railway,
and the birth of a movie industry.
* *
Today, nearly 10 million people live here,
but this is a remarkably disconnected place.
Yet I learned on my travels that even in a place
as troubled as Bulgaria,
there was happiness to be found.
* *
So I'm heading to Covina to meet
a woman responsible for more hyperenergetic joy
than anyone in Southern California.
Hello, hello.
Oh, my gosh, fantastic.
Hopefully, she'll have insight into what I've
missed out on around here.
[gasps] Oh, my gosh.
A chicky-chick.
Oh, my gosh.
This is amazing.
Shrooms. Hello?
[knocks] Yesenia?
- Hello, yes! - Hi, how are you?
- Welcome. - Rainn.
So nice to meet you.
- What's up, Rainn? - What's happening here?
- Oh, so that's actually gonna be a piece.
It's like an alter ego of me.
- You're gonna make that up to look like you?
- Yeah. - But is it a piñata?
Are people gonna be beating on it?
- You know, eventually.
Eventually.
You know, nothing lasts forever.
- The owner of this papier-mached wonderland
is Yesenia Prieto.
She's a third-generation piñata maker
from South Central who can create pretty much anything
you've ever dreamed of smashing in a blind rage.
But first and foremost, she's an artisan of joy.
Great. What, um--what do we do?
- We're gonna be making our little burrito piñata.
- OK, as in burrito,
not like a burrito, but like a mini burro.
- Yes. - Donkey, OK, great.
- A little donkey.
- You know what would be fun? Glass piñatas.
I'm just spitballing here. - No, I like that.
[laughter]
OK, we're gonna turn it upside down.
- I'm gonna add stapling to my resume.
- Yeah, it gets pretty gnarly.
It's not easy work, honestly.
But I'm really happy to see, like, our culture honestly
transcending from-- not just Mexican,
but to every other culture right now.
Because this is such a beautiful gift, you know?
You got two really prominent things that happen.
There's the birthday cake, and then there's the piñata.
- Mm-hmm.
- And in both of these moments,
everyone stops for a second.
And they all, like, focus on, like,
each other, the moment, the love.
It's like you're stopping time.
- It's like a shared joy. - Yes!
* *
- You are a third-generation piñata maker?
- Yeah. My family came from Mexico.
And they were really positive and very,
like, the American dream, and, like, we're gonna make it.
So my great-uncle opened up a party store, and he was like,
"Let's make piñatas, and they're gonna be beautiful."
And then my grandma and my other grandfather
got involved, and then my tia got involved,
and then my cousins got involved.
I did understand that there is value in art, you know?
- Mm-hmm.
- It's like, if people only knew what we could do,
if people could only see.
The mission was to, like, help my family
by reintroducing it as an art form.
- Like, for me, I think piñata--
forgive me-- but what I think is,
like, go to the party store and get a SpongeBob.
And I hadn't thought of piñatas as an art form
on a whole other kind of level.
- There's been so much blood, sweat, and tears,
you know, in creating these things.
And it has been because, you know,
we want to see the art.
We want to feel proud.
We want to push the caliber, even if it means
that we're not gonna be making the money.
- When I started as an actor, and I went to theater school
in New York, none of us thought we
were gonna make any money.
I mean, I wanted to be able to pay my rent.
We wanted to explode people's minds
and have them see the world in new ways and create new forms.
- That's because you're artists.
- Somewhere in there... - Yes.
- Is an artist... - Yes, you are.
- Struggling to get out. - No, yeah.
OK.
So you got some scissors right next to you.
- OK.
- We're going to make piñata fringe, or--
- Piñata fringe.
- Are you left-handed handed or right-handed?
- Right. I hate left-handed people.
- What? Oh, I didn't hear--
- Oh, no. - [sighs]
She won't be on season two.
Watch.
* *
I really admire what you're doing
because you're finding all this stuff in LA, right?
Community, meaning, purpose, connection.
- Do you feel like you haven't gotten to experience,
like, sincere depth here in LA?
- It's been a struggle to find community and connection.
- You can, like, speak to people,
and people will listen to you, and I think that's a gift.
- Mm.
- Sometimes, it's all grassroots.
If you can't find the community,
then you make the community.
- Mm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- So that's kind of what we've been trying to do.
- I love that.
If you can't find a community, make a community.
- Yeah.
- You're a very wise piñata maker.
- [laughs]
- I'm finding that an appreciation
of our own individual gifts is essential to happiness.
- Oh, yes. Ultimate test.
Can you make a circle?
[laughs]
- I think a lot of us are guilty of not
giving ourselves enough credit for our contributions.
I mean, if someone comes home after a crappy day,
throws on "The Office," and Dwight Schrute
makes them laugh for half an hour,
I need to cherish that.
- Oh, my God. - Look what we did.
- He's so cute.
- Using our talents to make other people's lives better,
whether that's through acting, being good with numbers,
being a dependable friend,
or making papier-mache donkeys,
it's all worth celebrating.
- Can I take part of the horse after it's bashed?
I'm playing hospital,
and I really need it for the hospital.
- You can. - Yes!
I'm going to transplant you with that horse.
- You're gonna give me a face transplant?
- [laughs]
- Yay, cupcakes!
- You are?
If it brings you joy, I'm willing to make
that sacrifice--ah!
[children laughing]
Here we go, doing the piñata.
- All right.
You know what's inside of here?
Guinea pigs!
Oh! Yeah!
Ow, that's my knuckles!
Wow!
Oh, man, where did this come from?
Oh, my gosh, it's Barry Bonds over here.
Will someone get that girl on a softball team ASAP?
- I can't wait for the guinea pigs to come out.
- Enough of this!
[yelling]
[children screaming, laughing]
Yesenia was right.
For these tiny partygoers,
the piñata represents endless promise.
- I have a telescope!
- It could contain anything, even guinea pigs.
It's all a matter of how you choose to look at things.
And as I learned in Ghana,
one of the world's most optimistic countries,
positivity is both powerful and contagious.
Lessons from the road revealing themselves at home.
Now, who wanted to attach the horse's head to my face?
- You do not want to be awake while this happens.
Sleep mask.
- I don't want to be awake while this happens?
- Just go to sleep.
- [snores]
- There you go.
- [neighs]
- That was a horse's butt on my face?
Thank you.
[upbeat music]
- Uh-huh.
I thought that was Thursday.
Ow.
I'll call you back.
More than any people on Earth, Americans have the inclination
to chase things we expect to bring us happiness,
and then we're confused as hell when they don't.
Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in Los Angeles.
And that soul-crushing disappointment
is probably why so many of us are in therapy.
Man, I'm looking forward to this.
- Oh, boy. It's been a long time.
- After weeks on the road,
I'm eager to gauge my progress.
And what better way to reflect on my personal growth
than with a therapy session of my own?
- Oh, yeah.
- But my sessions look a little different than most.
I forgot how pesky you were over there.
- [laughs]
- I can't get a ball past you. I forgot about that.
- I've gotten worse.
- [grunts]
- So you're trying real hard.
- Well, I'm thinking, like, am I feeling a zone?
Am I not feeling my zone?
And I'm trying to hit the ball over the net.
- Does Rainn know how to do nothing?
- I don't know how to do nothing.
- Try less.
- This is Zach Kleinman.
- Go easy.
- [grunts]
- Hit the ball with happiness.
- He's basically like if Yoda wore sneakers...
[upbeat rock music]
And had a fierce aversion to the LA sun.
* *
- Wow.
Can we wipe it?
Can we wipe your nose a little?
- He combines tennis instruction and talk therapy
to guide people through life's difficulties,
one serve at a time.
I realize that having a spiritual guru
who also teaches me tennis
might scream out-of-touch celebrity,
but hey, live in Los Angeles long enough,
and you just sort gravitate to doing some weird shit.
- So what's not sticking?
What's the most distracting piece from your happiness?
- All I know is, like, an entire day will go by,
and I've been in my office,
not appreciating the beauty around me,
stuck in texts, emails, work, deadlines.
And at the end of the day, I feel drained.
- When does it get quiet?
- I do meditation in the morning.
- That's 20 minutes. When does it get quiet?
- Playing tennis helps make it quiet.
It forces you to be in the moment.
It forces you to-- - Right.
But there's no force for those other 24 hours.
- I know.
- Where is that force inside you?
I'd like you to find that force.
Get the hell back there.
- Oh, OK.
[upbeat music]
- Trying too hard.
High expectations.
- [groans] - Where'd you go?
- Shopping list, emails.
- Definitely not this shot.
- Trying to hit the cameraman.
Oh!
- You all right?
* *
That easier? - That felt good.
- As a tennis player, we know we've got
24 seconds to turn it around.
I've got 24 seconds to get over this.
Next point.
- Letting it go and moving on.
- No, dealing with it and moving on.
I'm sure that many other people on your journey
shared something like that with you.
- Mm-hmm.
- But you're somewhat forgetting it
now that there are more distractions.
- Well, and I have 50-some years of bad habits, patterns.
- That they couldn't fix?
- I couldn't get fixed in a couple months.
I guess part of what I'm--
part of what I've been dealing with the last year or two is,
you know, my father passing away.
He was old, God bless him, but--
uh, not as old as you.
- No one is.
- I did a lot of grieving.
And then at the same time, am I doing enough grieving?
Is this how you-- I don't know how to grieve.
No one taught me how to grieve.
How long are you supposed to be sad over a dead parent?
Like, I don't know.
Is there more grief in there that's stuck in me?
Sometimes, I feel like there is.
Oh, did you see that?
- You actually had some focus on your grief--
- Uh-huh.
- For your father, who raised you.
- Yeah.
Oh, that was good.
Why, when I get in touch with emotion,
am I hitting the ball so much more cleanly
and with so much more focus?
- That may be part of the problem,
is you're trying to understand.
Happiness is an experience, not a concept
that you keep searching for.
- Before this journey,
I'd hear these fortune cookie sayings like,
you don't chase happiness, you experience it,
and they'd make sense to me intuitively.
But like any proverb,
they're more easily recited than achieved.
Yet in this moment, speaking with Zach
about my father's death, I get it.
These aren't some bullshit words of wisdom.
They're universal truths.
And maybe, just maybe,
this journey has changed me after all.
Experience that!
- [laughs] - Mother[bleep].
- Hi.
- Steve Carell.
- Thank you. - Yeah, Steve Carell.
[rousing big band music]
It's among the most common reasons
that folks flock to Los Angeles,
to become famous.
And for some, fame is more valuable than money itself.
- Um...
- 10 million followers, just because I feel like
I can do a lot with that.
- I know you can make way more money
with all those followers.
But I'm, like--I'm too lazy, and I'm not good at it.
- [exhales sharply] That's really tough.
- Oh, a million dollars.
- I would take a million dollars.
- How do-- what am I famous for?
What are the 10 million followers following me for?
Because if they're just following me for me,
that's weird-- I don't really want that.
- $1 million for sure.
I'm pretty content with my little bubble of friends,
and a million dollars would be pretty cool.
I'd take a million dollars.
- But if they're following me because they,
like, like to watch me fingerboard,
or they like to, you know, they--
I make it comedically somehow
or something, then yeah, sure.
I'll take the followers for sure.
- California is the social media capital of the world,
with an estimated 200,000 influencers living here--
most of them in Los Angeles.
Oh, ho.
- Hello. - No way.
You guys, thanks for having me over and schooling me
in the ways of social media.
I'm really lame at it.
- OK, well, we're gonna see what we can work with, so...
- Can we compare nails just real quick,
before we get started?
Just--
My notoriety as Dwight Schrute granted me
joys and frustrations I never could have anticipated.
But I'm curious to understand the allure of fame
in today's Los Angeles, where TikTok and Instagram
can change a person's life overnight,
for better or for worse.
So I'm here with Rave, Kiera, and Aaron,
members of a TikTok collective called Vault House.
They spend their days dreaming up the next viral sensation,
and they've invited me over to raise the average age
in their house by like four decades.
OK, so we've got a dry erase board here.
Let's get started. - OK.
- Let's talk character arcs, OK?
- OK. - We want to break story.
We want to take a series arc, you know.
Where are we from where we begin to where we end up, OK?
So is this what you guys do with--
- Pretty much, just, like, on our phones, but yeah.
- I mean, this one's a little more professional than normal.
But yeah. - Yeah.
- OK, all right.
What are you doing on your phone
when you're researching for your writer's room?
- Definitely looking for trending videos.
- Or sometimes, it's just a trending audio.
Like, just a sound, or some music,
or something like that that works,
and then you just do your own kind of thing to it.
- So what do you want to do today?
Let's brainstorm. Let's figure it out.
What's trending? - Show him.
- Who's the meanest? - This is also us.
- Friend group. - Yeah.
You're gonna be in our friend group.
- Most likely to get into a fight?
- That audio exists out there somewhere.
- Yes. - We're just going to--
- Redo it.
- But why does something go viral?
What makes it trend?
- Some people go viral for being just blatantly hot.
Like, and some people go viral for an actual talent,
like singing, or--
anything could really pop off.
That's what's so great about TikTok is that you can have
any form of creativity, and we all have a chance
of, like, making it happen.
- That's great.
So we've got a bunch of things right now.
And one other one I need your help with...
- OK.
- Is figuring out how to make
the bassoon go viral on TikTok.
- We'll try. both: We'll try.
- Let's do it. - Oh, yeah, OK.
- Come on, team. - Yes, sir.
- Come on. - [laughs]
- Let's Tok it up. - [laughs]
- Whoo!
Yeah, good. All right.
- Who's the meanest?
Most likely to do weird things in public?
Most likely to break someone's heart?
- This reminds me of my early days in improv.
[laughter]
I mean, if this technology existed
when I was trying to make it,
I would have been doing the exact same thing,
performing skits, goofy dances.
- Most likely to become a porn star?
- Yeah--
- Whatever it took to get noticed.
- Perfect. [laughter]
- You all are really brilliant technicians.
Like, I think people maybe have the idea
that it doesn't take any kind of skill or talent,
but there's some-- and you're improvising, right?
- Yeah.
- You're being creative. - Yeah.
- Is this the dream?
Do you feel like you're living the dream?
Because that's what a lot of people think.
Like, oh, going to LA to pursue fame and fortune.
- Mm-hmm. - Are you happy here?
- Yes. - Yeah.
- I'm happy. - Very.
- I love your spirit and inventiveness.
But we do have this uptick
in mental health crisis with young people.
- Mm-hmm.
- What's your take on that connection
with social media and young people's mental health,
body image, body dysmorphia,
the pressures of beauty culture
that the three of you are presenting?
- Um, I think there are a lot of cons,
but I think there's still a lot of pros to social media.
Like, a lot of connections that can be made
that you would never be able to make otherwise
from people all around the world.
- I think our generation is getting a lot more help,
and a lot of people are in therapy now,
and like, seeing therapists and getting diagnosed.
And a lot of the last generation wasn't doing that.
- But what if, you know, there's someone who physically
doesn't feel that good about themselves in Iowa,
and they're looking at your videos and being like,
I'll never be as pretty as--
as pretty girl Rave, and they feel bad?
What do you think is happening there?
- Society is really rough on girls, I think, in general.
Without even social media, I think TV before then
was really big, magazines were really big.
- But now it's like-- - More accessible.
- It's sped up, it's more accessible.
It's right on your phone. It's constant.
It's refreshed every time you put your thumb on the screen.
- So I've struggled with dysthymia
since I was seven, which if you don't know what that is,
it's like chronic depression.
- OK.
- So for me, the reason I started social media
was to make other people laugh.
Doing all these comedy skits and, like,
making other people happy was, like, my escape of like,
you know, being in my own head.
- Yeah.
- Can you talk about your struggles with depression
with your followers, or have you?
- I have.
I'm in therapy, and they know that.
- OK.
- I feel like I'm very open with that
because I think it's very important for my supporters,
just being like, if you are struggling, like,
it's OK to get help if they need it.
Or I tell them all the time, "If you need somebody
to talk to, just DM me."
Like, I'm always on my phone.
Hey, guys.
I just finished my therapy for the day.
You guys already know how much I love my therapist.
Today we talked about my dysthymia and my PTSD,
and a lot of my triggers and symptoms
have been getting reduced and a lot better.
And I'm like, OK, look at me go!
- So you see this in some ways as a service
to your followers?
- Yeah.
- In one study, fame was the most common life goal
chosen by 10 to 12-year-olds in America.
But as research tells us, fame,
or any form of seeking prestige,
is no path to happiness.
It's the difference between what
psychologists call intrinsic
and extrinsic rewards.
Intrinsic rewards are the good vibes
we feel from doing things we genuinely enjoy.
Extrinsic rewards come from things outside of ourselves.
They're trophies or likes on social media posts.
They make you feel good momentarily,
but long-term, they don't amount to anything.
Aaron, Rave, and Kiera are happy in Los Angeles
because they actually love what they do.
Their work scratches a creative itch for them...
[laughter]
Just as re-enacting SNL sketches did
for me when I was their age.
- I'm just so lucky to be able to be surrounded by people
that, like, love me, are also in the same field as me,
which is also very rare.
I feel like if someone's in the corporate world,
you don't really make friends there, you know?
Everyone's, like, in a little cubicle.
You just make lifelong friends.
- So you found some deep friendships,
not superficial, fly-by-night friendships.
- Mm-hmm. - Yeah.
- They incorporate fun into everything they do,
something I think the people of Thailand would smile upon.
They've even managed to do the impossible:
Make a double-reed woodwind instrument look badass.
Bassoon in the house!
[dramatic bassoon music]
Well, you know, sort of.
[bassoon squeaks]
[laughter]
- Can I talk to you for a second?
Hi, I'm Rainn.
- Hi, I know. - Yeah.
Where are you from? - I'm from Manitoba, Canada.
- We're wandering the world looking for bliss.
How is that working for you in Manitoba?
- It's great. - Yeah?
- Absolutely. - OK.
What about in Los Angeles? Have you found much here?
[car engine revs]
- It's a nice place, but I--it's not bliss.
- No? - No.
- But there's palm trees, and beaches,
and minor television celebrities.
- You're not a minor television celebrity.
- Oh, get on with you.
[laughter]
And now for every self-absorbed actor's
favorite part...
- The part about themselves.
- Well, I know he's on "The Office."
I'm pretty sure that he's got to be Norwegian.
- I know. I was telling her.
I was like, you don't know who Rainn Wilson is?
That's Dwight. [laughs]
- Whoops.
- My friend Ivar is Norwegian, and they have
the exact same round head and bulbous features.
- I have his book signed by him, "The Bassoon King."
I like to watch his YouTube channel.
- I won $500 for doing a monologue
from Dwight from "The Office."
So Dwight is, like, my favorite character.
- I have seen "The Office," but only a few episodes.
- I've never really seen it all the way through.
- Yeah, I mean, it was funny when I saw it.
But you know, I didn't follow up.
- You work in Hollywood long enough
and you come to accept that everyone's got an opinion.
- For me, I think, actually, it would be Dwight, yeah.
- And most of the time, they're right.
* *
After meeting Aaron, Rave, and Kiera,
here I am thinking really, really deep thoughts
while staring at the Pacific Ocean,
and realizing how important priorities are
to surviving here.
With so many tempting distractions,
LA is like a choose-your-own-adventure
novel where most of the outcomes
are leaving town and moving back in with your parents.
I'm reminded of a friend who, thanks to understanding
what she values most in this world,
found true bliss living here.
There's no doorbell. There's no doorbell.
But it wasn't the path she ever imagined.
Ah! - Hello!
- No way! Hi.
- Hi.
- I brought some...
- Yay, thank you so much. - Delicious baked goods.
- I have some coffee and tea for us.
- Oh, great.
I met Ari Meyers over 20 years ago,
when she attended a comedy show I was a part of
called "The New Bozena."
And she made an immediate impression.
The reason I wanted to talk to you is,
your story has really been powerful to me over the years.
I remember you being in this kind of--
not midlife crisis, but early-life crisis.
It was kind of like, what am I doing with myself?
What am I doing with my life?
What is going to ultimately bring me
the most joy, fulfillment?
Delicious.
Unlike my own long and winding road to stardom,
Ari rose to fame quickly as a talented child actor.
- I started when I was five.
- Oh, wow. - Modeling.
A modeling agency came to my preschool.
- That sounds creepy.
- No, it was for-- - Uh, hey, I'm a, uh--
I'm a modeling agent.
Let me check out these toddlers.
- It wasn't creepy.
- In her teens, Ari was in a hit sitcom
called "Kate & Allie."
- Chip, I can't do this.
- But you need an image.
- Yes, but not this image.
- And by her early 20s, she was booking gigs
on TV shows and movies.
- I thought it was a very funny script,
so I had a great time.
- She was living the dream.
Well, at least my dream.
Do you miss show business at all?
- No. [laughter]
No. - No?
- I just was, like, not happy.
A lot of it had to do with focus on appearance.
I think for women, it's probably
a very different thing.
And I had some experiences that were challenging,
even when I was a teenager, with that focus.
You know, being--she's too heavy, she's too skinny,
she's too--you know, I think that kind of just got
into my head, that it became more about that.
And it was never comfortable for me.
- Mm. - Never comfortable.
- Being an actor in LA is one
of the most narcissistic professions there is.
It's all about who likes me, how do I look,
do you want me, will you hire me?
It's all just me, me, me, me, me.
But you shifted from a career that was all about me
to a career that was all about you,
that's all about taking care of people,
that's all about serving other people.
What does that feel like?
- Amazing. Such a relief.
I was just like... [sighs]
It's amazing.
- Ari is now a labor and delivery nurse
and postpartum doula,
helping families through this terrifying
and euphoric stage of their lives.
Having been there when my wife endured
a pretty harrowing birth of our own son, Walter,
I'm in awe of the work Ari does.
- I'm the one there to sort of take care of the baby,
monitor the baby, take vital signs.
And it's incredible. - Mm-hmm.
- It's incredible.
And you get to see parents see their baby for the first time,
and facilitate that, and be present for that.
- I remember you talking about this, changing bedpans...
- Yes. - And catheters.
You are not the person I would have ever expected to,
like, roll up your sleeves and jump into that.
- I discovered that nursing is so much more.
Like, it's physiology. It's science.
But you are also that emotional support.
- Mm-hmm.
[soft music]
* *
Ari also does home visits after families
have left the hospital.
Are there ugly babies, though? - There aren't.
- Like, really, seriously? - There aren't.
Hi. - Hello.
- Hi! - Hi, how are you?
- This is Jiri. This is my friend Rainn.
Thank you so much for letting him shadow me today.
- Ari is checking in on mom Alex and dad Jiri,
who she helped after the birth of their son, Luka.
Come here, Luka. Come here, Luka.
- But he came out healthy, happy, and he's been--
- Healthy and happy, and look at that smile.
Oh!
You're gonna be a big star, Luka.
A big star.
And what kind of help did Ari give you guys?
- Everything.
Just basically normalizing feelings that I had.
I was able to talk through, you know,
things that were upsetting me, things that I had doubts about.
And you know, it was all OK.
And it was all OK to talk about.
- I don't know about you, but me, at least,
I always felt this, like, calm when she was here.
Like, there's someone here who wants to help us
and who knows what they're doing.
- OK, what do you need? What's going on?
- What do you think he needs? You think he needs food?
- I think he needs some food. - All right, come here.
Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.
Go crazy.
- [chuckles]
- Have you found bliss in this work?
- I think I have.
If you can find something that you love to do
that is also of service and actually helping someone...
- Who gives a shit about auditions and red carpets?
Los Angeles makes it too easy to fixate on the wrong things,
something that I'm frequently guilty of.
[gasps] Good job.
How about a roll over? Come on.
Part of my transformation these past months
has been learning to cut through the noise
and focus on what actually matters.
It's a cliché, sure.
But my God, is it an important one.
Well, you know that Walter's birth was
incredibly traumatic, and he almost died,
and Holiday almost died.
But that moment was one of the most powerful moments
of my life, and I think of anyone's life,
but especially almost losing the baby.
And then he was brought out to me and put in my arms
as I sat in this hallway with blood on the floor.
- Yeah.
- And I looked into his eyes, and...
it was really
unbelievable.
And it was a series of emotions that I didn't know I had.
It was kind of a pride and elation,
and a wonder at the miracle of life itself.
And it's utterly-- it's transformative.
- Yeah.
- And you get to be a part of that every week.
- Yeah, in its purest form. It's sacred, you know.
You're with people in the most vulnerable parts
of their life.
And they're allowing you to be there.
- Ari had a vision of what life in Los Angeles would be,
but found emptiness.
So she adapted,
an ability which I learned makes people in Iceland
some of the happiest in the world.
It's a beautiful thing to realize that just because you
find yourself on one path--
professional, emotional, spiritual--
doesn't mean you're destined to stay on it.
Perhaps happiness in LA means being able
to redefine yourself on your own terms,
whether that's from actress to nurse or, in my case,
from unhappy to figuring it out.
- For the most part, on good days.
I don't know if happiness is a place
I'm resting 100% of the time,
but it is a place that I get to visit a lot.
- Family and friends are what make me happy.
You can have all of the money in the world.
You can have the best job.
But if you don't have those people near you
who support you and believe in you,
it's not worth it.
- Life's [bleep] hard, and,
you know, it's difficult to admit that.
We just have to keep trying, and don't get stuck.
- Finding things that you love and people that you love,
and surrounding yourself with that,
I think that's the best you can do,
no matter where you live.
- I think I'm still working on finding my happiness.
But I do understand
it's a journey, and I know I'll get there.
- I don't know, just an appreciation for life
and this world because everything's crazy.
[laughs]
- We just got married. - We're married.
- [laughs]
- And I'm eating pastrami.
- Relationships with people that I love
brings me the most joy in life, for sure.
- I love him.
- [laughs] - And I love him.
[laughs]
- Happiness has more to do with, like,
how you feel about yourself.
It's more of, like, a long-term thing.
- The happiest I've ever felt is right now.
[upbeat music]
- Was that awkward?
- Was it good? - Aww!
[laughter]
- In my life, there's one person who constantly keeps me
from going off the rails--
someone who it's been especially difficult
being away from while running around planet Earth.
I first met her in an acting class in the mid '80s.
And while the whole notion of love at first sight
seems kind of crazy, that's exactly what happened.
This is my wife, author Holiday Reinhorn.
I have really learned from you over the years.
You know, we both struggle with anxiety,
but I'm consistently the one
that's kind of more emotionally reactive.
I'm more anxious.
I'm kind of--I'm the one who's a little more stuck
in my head, from here on up.
- Mm.
- And I really admire, like,
your dailiness and your weekly practice.
Basically what I'm saying is,
I shouldn't have traveled the world.
I should have just talked to you.
How do you think bliss and happiness work?
Where do they come from? How do you find yours?
- I used to have these elaborate, like, to-do lists,
and when Walter was like five or six,
he was like, "What's on that list?"
You know, and I was like, you do yours.
And his was like, go see if I can see a coyote,
play in the creek,
count how many birds are in the trees, you know.
And he did it.
And he like, checked off his list.
And I was like, "What was your favorite thing?"
And he's like, "I don't have favorite things.
Everything is my favorite."
And I was like, hmm, you know, I love that idea,
that the worst possible thing can have happiness in it.
You've traveled all over the place doing jobs,
and this time we were in, like, a 15-hour time difference.
So you were waking up, and I was going to bed,
vice versa, which is the worst time.
But it was the best time ever for us.
Like, it was a little bit like the bliss transferred over.
- It does shift your perspective
when you spend every day talking to people
about finding joy and bliss.
- Yeah, you can't really be with a monk all day
and then come home and have a big fight with your wife.
It would feel weird.
[chuckles]
- Part of what I've learned on my travels
is expressing gratitude, and I'm so grateful to you.
- Thank you. - I love you so much.
- Oh, my God.
[laughs]
[upbeat music]
- And so now, after traveling the world,
swimming in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic,
and getting my ass kicked by a teenager,
the million-dollar question is, am I happier?
* *
If I'm being honest with myself,
the answer isn't black and white.
I certainly understand much more
about the nature of happiness,
but only a fool would make sweeping generalizations
about something so important.
So here I go.
Friends are essential.
So is family.
Opa!
Expressing yourself means everything.
A noise in your head means nothing.
We can learn to adapt...
Oh, oh, ahh!
And to change our perspective.
Two Elton Johns. You know Elton John?
Beaches may be optional...
This is absolutely nuts.
But trust in those around us is not.
All right. Let's call it a day.
Embrace nature in all its glory...
Aghh!
[laughs]
And have as much fun for the sake
of freaking fun while you still can.
[cheers and applause]
Walter's gonna play a little bit.
- OK.
- Most importantly, I've learned there are
infinite paths to happiness.
It's the Tolstoy quote turned on its head:
Miserable places are all alike,
and happy ones are happy in their own ways.
Not bad.
And so my journey doesn't end here.
The geography of bliss is a constantly moving target
and a lifelong endeavor.
Which begs the question,
where's next on this joy ride?
- All right, awesome.
Rainn, I feel good about this. - OK.
- Unless there's another piece you--I think it's great.
I think we're good. - OK.
- Sound speeding?
- You don't have anything bigger
and more ridiculous-looking than this?
[bird squawks]
- Again-- [horn honks]
- High fives, high fives.
Anybody want a high five?
- High five.
High fives. Come on, Oleg.
Pew!
- Yeah.