Well-being is...a vibrating chair

Recently returned from Egypt, where I've been on a business trip for the last few days. I'll write my thoughts on it shortly. In the meantime, I was struck by how the rhetoric of well-being has infiltrated the flying experience.

In addition to the traditional onboard safety video, British Airways now has a 'well-being video', showing soothing images of healthy-looking individuals strolling over hills, and giving advice for 'onboard pilates' exercises to maximize your eudaimonia while onboard.

BA's magazine, High Life, also had an intriguing advert for something called the OSIM uSpace, which boldly claims to be 'the world's first well-being chair'. You may have thought other chairs granted well-being - rocking chairs, comfy sofas, swings, even perhaps a warm toilet seat - but they are as nothing compared to the cutting edge eudaimonic technology of the uSpace.

The advert reads: 'Inspired by Nature, the OSIM uSpace is your personal cocoon of Well-Being. A private space of retreat combined with clinically-proven Music, Mood Light and Massage to deliver a revolutionary trio of multi-sensory stimulation. A true metamorphosis unfolds each time you indulge in the holistic and sensorial pampering of your Well-Being with the OSIM uSpace.'

2,000 years ago, the Greeks suggested that well-being meant following a path of austere self-denial. Now, it means being pampered in a vibrating chair. Progress, my friends, progress.