Iowa festival aims to explore the pursuit of happiness
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios; Stock: Getty Images
A festival in Des Moines will explore the theme "The Pursuit of Happiness" and the role the concept played in America's foundation in light of the country's 250th anniversary.
Why it matters: Despite Thomas Jefferson's writings and having more material comforts than ever, Americans are reporting more unhappiness, anxiety and detachment.
State of play: Panels at the Tallgrass Festival of Ideas next weekend will center on the pursuit of happiness, including beauty and art, migration, mental health, and the historical context of the phrase, founder Nathan Beacom tells Axios.
- Speakers will include professors from the University of Iowa and Iowa State, local artists, and political theorists.
Zoom in: AI — the constant gloom-and-doom topic of 2026 — is also on the agenda, with a panel led by Ali Hasan, a University of Iowa philosophy professor.
- "There are a ton of interesting questions that AI raises," Beacom says, noting the ease of automation. "What's the place of difficulty and suffering and friction and challenge? Are those things necessary? Do we lose anything if we make life more easy and painless?"
The big picture: Since the mid-1960s, we've seen a rise in individualism and a drop-off in community life, including declines in organized religion and volunteering.
- Community life dropped more sharply in 2012 as more people picked up their phones and teens reported increased anxiety and social isolation with the popularity of social media.
- The goal of the festival is to promote more in-person interactions, even if the topics are already easily accessible through TED Talks and podcasts online. Beacom hopes that by having more in-person conversations, people will feel more meaning in their lives.
- "Materially, we're very comfortable," he says. "Invest in, especially right now, real, in-person, concrete relationships."
Zoom out: Beacom points to a nearly 90-year-old longitudinal study by Harvard examining human health and happiness as evidence of the need for human connection.
- Older adults who had led longer and happier lives reported that money and fame hadn't been major influences. Instead, they said that strong social relationships were what sustained their happiness.
- The quality of friendships, rather than just the number of friends, also mattered, as did treating happiness as a daily mindfulness habit rather than an end goal.
If you go: Aug. 7-8 at Drake University and The Shop. Tickets: $55.