Tue 4 Dec 2007
Broad minimalism today:
What does it mean to live a good life?
(As suggested by Meatbomb.)
Posted by Josh Millard33 answers so far!
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Big Big Question is a Josh Millard project.
The Noble Eightfold Path?
A purpose. Real or imagined.
To be happy. Real or imagined.
I think that if you are happy, and help make those around you happy, that is at least a part of living a good life. Playing with children and animals, being silly, joking, loving.
To me there’s a difference between happy and good; I’m sure Jeffrey Dahmer thought he was happy. Of course that’s an extreme example, but my point is that I see “happy” as the way a person feels and “good” as the way a person acts. Conversely, I’m sure there are lots of people who do good for others but are miserable inside.
In the abstract of “what should we all strive toward,” Meatbomb’s answer strikes the (ahem) happy medium, for me. One should try to be happy and to improve the lives of others.
“The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.”
- Robert Louis Stevenson
One obvious way to slice up the question: do you measure the goodness of life internally or externally?
If I am happy in my life, my needs satisfied and my mind kept busy, that’s a good life, for me, and damn the consequences: whether I’m a saint or a drunk or Adolf Hilter redux.
But accounting for the idea that a good life is a life judged in the context of how it affects the world, is it good done or harm prevented that makes a life good? And how do overt acts of good balance against acts of harm? Is the suburbanite who has never done a lick for charity but never been cross or hurtful to anyone in his life living well?
If good is meant in the sense of “ethically good” as opposed to “comfortable and prosperous”, I think it boils down to one thing: fight against entropy in all its forms.
To live a good life, do these things. Do not move to the next number in the list until you are consistently able to do all previous numbers.
1. Do not fuck shit up for other people.
2. Do things that make you happy.
3. Do things that will make other people happy.
- Treat others how you wish to be treated
- If you can help, do so
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.
It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
Conan the Gonzorian has a certain strange appeal.
Let “x” be the set of choices you’ve made. Then let “x*” be an optimal set of choices, allowing yourself to condition on your ex-post wisdom, but only on your ex-ante information. Let mu be a measure over the set X with… wait… where y’all going?
Oh, god help me. I can’t believe I just conflated Blues Brothers with Fear and Loathing.
And no copping out, Mike: finish that formula.
Well ok. If mu(x,x*)N you’ve lived an interesting life. (If mu(x,x*)=N, try again!)
Whoops! Forgot about html! If mu(x,x*) < N you’ve lived a highly defensible life. If mu(x,x*) > N you’ve lived an interesting life. (If mu(x,x*) = N, try again!)
An interesting comment from Metafilter, just now: Did Poker legend Chip Reese live well?
You know what I don’t like about this site? We aren’t answering any of these questions. They are just being posed and we are throwing answers out there. I need closure. I need to know what the answer actually is.
That should be your website for next week cortex. BigBigAnswer: a spin-off of BigBigQuestion where the answers to the BigBigQuestions are provided. Either that or do like the crosswords and post the answer to the last one when you post the new one.
Heh. “The answer is: $5K for a kidney, $12K for a healthy left leg, and you can’t even AFFORD an adrenal gland so stop asking.”
What does it mean to live a good life?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
To do for a living what you would happily do for free. To be surrounded by a supportive family (whether it’s the one you were born with or one you assembled as you went along). To help more than you hurt.
Me, I’d be perfectly content to follow the Blues Brothers’ example and head out on an adventure with someone just as odd and funky as I am. That would be a good life.
Josh,
Don’t feel bad. I thought it was Fear and Loathing too, until I got to the end (”and we’re wearing sunglasses”) without the mention of any drugs.
Also, since we don’t have a “favourite” button (yet), I just wanted to say that I really liked Erik’s answer.
Do not want what you don’t have.
Do not complain about what you do have.
Do not have what you don’t need.
Do not complain about others having what you do not want.
To have ideals, integrity, and adventures anyway.
It’s an interesting question, because nested in the description is the solid concept of “contentment” – which may be the most difficult element of Good Life to pin down. On the surface of it, it seems as though if you have enough resources (natural, physical, social and material), well, there it is – you have the good life! But there’s all sorts of evidence that this just ain’t necessarily so. AskMe alone provides a startling number of examples of intelligent, healthy, successful people mired in depression… and I think most people can remember when they were poor/lonely/had the crappy job/lived in the crappy place and how they thought, “when X-Condition changes, I’ll be so happy.” But it’s almost never true. There’s a brief flurry of delight once you gain that imagined height, and then with alarming swiftness that great thing that was supposed to change your life becomes mundane and ordinary – and you find yourself focused on the step beyond, the next Super Important Thing that must happen in order for you to feel happy.
So, while I definitely don’t have the secret formula for the good life tucked away in the silverware drawer where I can get to it quickly if I need to, I’m pretty sure there are certain aspects that must (usually) be present, chief among them: living in the “now” instead of looking forward to that time when everything’s gonna be great, or looking back on how cool it was back when you were ________ (a kid, in college, married, unmarried, living in another place, had less/more responsibility, etc.) It shouldn’t be imagined that living in your own present means that one has no goals or must always be satisfied with the status quo, but when you pin your happiness on some concrete condition that must change before you can enjoy life – well, it’s probably not going to be the golden ticket you think it is.
In addition to this, these things all seem more or less integral: the ability to be grateful for what you have when you have it; the ability to see the world, recognize the beauty and complexity around you; service to others; a clear conscience (as much as this is possible); honest acts of kindness; physical exertion, especially in aid of something constructive; exercise of the imagination; learning new things; taking care of yourself and your surroundings.
I’ve seen too many miserable people with all the money and freedom that they would ever need, living in beautiful, luxurious palaces, able to travel at will and buy anything they they want to believe that the good life is inherent in any of these lovely things. I certainly don’t think they will keep you from living the good life, but judging by a preponderance of empirical evidence, and assuming my theory of “contentment” is correct – they certainly won’t get you there.
dang. Josh, can you fix my italics after “see” in the third paragraph, second line? Shit.
Fixed! I should look into allowing comment editing.
Thanks! Preview didn’t work for me… don’t know if it’s a “just-me” thing.
hmm… and now, reading the question again, I realize it’s not about “the good life”, but “a good life”… which is probably more of a question about being a “good person”, than a question about being a happy or content person? (Though they can certainly overlap!)
However, if someone dies and people say, “well, he/she lived a good life,” then it probably means that the person was (at least relatively) happy, successful, and beloved, while if someone says, “I want to live a good life,” it probably means that they want to minimize any potential negative impact of their existence while maximizing their overall contribution… so I’m not sure about the context here.
Actually, I think that’s the more interesting point: “a good life”, when used in the past tense, means something different than “a good life” used in the future tense.
I like the Stoic answer: life is hard, therefore living a good life means facing adversity and dealing with it. See M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.
To me, happiness isn’t really something that’s under your control, so it doesn’t make sense to focus on it.
The Economist’s review of Darrin McMahon’s Happiness: A History:
His central argument is that the modern idea of happiness was an invention of the Enlightenment. …
Historically speaking, this was a radical change. For the ancient Greeks, happiness was largely bound up with notions of luck and fortune. Any man, however high and mighty, could be brought down by a twist of fate. The important thing, therefore, was not to seek happiness for its own sake but to live virtuously. Being good, as Mr McMahon nicely puts it, was more important than feeling good. For Herodotus and his contemporaries, happiness was not a “subjective state” but a “characterisation of an entire life that can be reckoned only at death.”