[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 thera
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, but ísbíltúr 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?
- 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.
- 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,
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.