Whole life vs complete life
August 14th 2006 17:48
You save all your money. Why? To buy the house. But why do you want to buy the house?
Work is inherently evil. If you willingly do it, then it isn't work. Most of what most people do is pointless and life-destroying. Work, by definition, is what you wouldn't choose if you had a choice.
So why are you squandering your youth away now -- on forty hour weeks? Fifty hours, sixty hours? Or why consume years in some college degree that bores you?
Well, so you can retire sooner and retire richer. It's a trade off. It's an educated gamble. Present misery for future happiness. The fun I'm going to have when I'm 60 is worth the shit I'm eating when I'm 30. Buying the house will lead to more happiness in the long run. What matters is the whole life perspective. What matters is maximising happiness over my lifetime.
The funny thing is, that in essence this is no different from people who say, Fuck the mortgage. I might be run over by a bus tomorrow. I want my happiness now.
One might think the attitude short-sighted, pleasure-blinded. But it's simply a different strategy to the same end. Mortgage boy thinks twenty potential years of bliss are worth forty of definite misery. Whereas bus-worried guy says: I'm making the better gamble, and I maximize my whole life happiness by being as happy as possible moment-to-moment -- not by saving it for the final party.
So these two ways converge, are ultimately the same way. And it's a very natural way. But it isn't the only way.
A different train of thought cares less about the whole and more about the complete. "Before you die, this is a doing you have to do, an experience you have to experience." Why? Well, the why is hard to justify. Somewhere, somehow, this person has found a list of what's important. They might have got it from Krishna or their parents or Aristotle or culture. They might have seen it scribbled on a beer coaster, or uttered in a dream. Who knows where they got it. But the fact is, that they got it.
And where complete life differs from whole life is this: In whole life, you're maximizing a quality x (be it happiness, or desire fulfilment, or service to God or whatever), and the project is open-ended. You never stop. You try to get as much quality x as possible. Whereas, in complete life, often you're maximizing the quality of conformity to a list, but, sometimes, the list items are achievable.
Work is inherently evil. If you willingly do it, then it isn't work. Most of what most people do is pointless and life-destroying. Work, by definition, is what you wouldn't choose if you had a choice.
So why are you squandering your youth away now -- on forty hour weeks? Fifty hours, sixty hours? Or why consume years in some college degree that bores you?
Well, so you can retire sooner and retire richer. It's a trade off. It's an educated gamble. Present misery for future happiness. The fun I'm going to have when I'm 60 is worth the shit I'm eating when I'm 30. Buying the house will lead to more happiness in the long run. What matters is the whole life perspective. What matters is maximising happiness over my lifetime.
The funny thing is, that in essence this is no different from people who say, Fuck the mortgage. I might be run over by a bus tomorrow. I want my happiness now.
One might think the attitude short-sighted, pleasure-blinded. But it's simply a different strategy to the same end. Mortgage boy thinks twenty potential years of bliss are worth forty of definite misery. Whereas bus-worried guy says: I'm making the better gamble, and I maximize my whole life happiness by being as happy as possible moment-to-moment -- not by saving it for the final party.
So these two ways converge, are ultimately the same way. And it's a very natural way. But it isn't the only way.
A different train of thought cares less about the whole and more about the complete. "Before you die, this is a doing you have to do, an experience you have to experience." Why? Well, the why is hard to justify. Somewhere, somehow, this person has found a list of what's important. They might have got it from Krishna or their parents or Aristotle or culture. They might have seen it scribbled on a beer coaster, or uttered in a dream. Who knows where they got it. But the fact is, that they got it.
And where complete life differs from whole life is this: In whole life, you're maximizing a quality x (be it happiness, or desire fulfilment, or service to God or whatever), and the project is open-ended. You never stop. You try to get as much quality x as possible. Whereas, in complete life, often you're maximizing the quality of conformity to a list, but, sometimes, the list items are achievable.
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But I do think my basic point stands. I mean, you know what I mean by "work", right? You can understand the definition "stuff you'd prefer not to do". And, in general, isn't it also true that stuff you'd prefer not to do you shouldn't be forced to do. In an ideal world anyway.
So, if robots could wait on us hand and foot, and if no one had to slave for corporations, I think that most people would agree it was a better world (assuming the robots didn't go crazy and try to take over, etc).