"Happinesss is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself: and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life" GB Shaw.
- This quote actually comes -- surprisingly enough -- from an economics textbook I'm studying from: The history of economic thought. See, lot of the models we create and study in economics presuppose Jeremy Bentham's philosophy of utilitarianism: that (wo) man is governed by the pleasure/pain principle -- more pleasure is preferred to less, and less pain is preferred to more. So the models often reflect an insatiable utility -- the only constraint on our happiness is the amount of resources (often money) that we possess. If these axioms fail to hold, however, many models lose their validity. Regardless, that's something for me to study another day... in the meantime, the quote remains a compelling and interesting one, especially at this point in our lives.
Do we go off and simply do something that brings us only happiness? Is there such a thing as "only" happiness? We often hear that today: "hey, go do whatever makes you happy, whatever floats your boat..." But as Shaw points out, it's not enough just to go about bringing happiness to yourself. It's not enough just to make a boatload of money, buy a nice car and golf every Saturday afternoon. To be truly courageous we must be willing to sacrifice some of the things we love best and embrace something larger than ourselves. Well, I'm not going to make any judgments on what's a proper sacrifice... Some would say religion, others say humanity, others your nation, still others your family. But the power of the quote lies in the condemnation of the "easy life"; am i getting so self-absorbed in my own happiness that I'm missing this key aspect of the human condition -- this "intenser quality of life"?
And perhaps what we discover in this intenser quality of life -- achieved through an abandonment of excessive self-gratification -- is joy: a reward far more profound than what mere happiness can bring.
- This quote actually comes -- surprisingly enough -- from an economics textbook I'm studying from: The history of economic thought. See, lot of the models we create and study in economics presuppose Jeremy Bentham's philosophy of utilitarianism: that (wo) man is governed by the pleasure/pain principle -- more pleasure is preferred to less, and less pain is preferred to more. So the models often reflect an insatiable utility -- the only constraint on our happiness is the amount of resources (often money) that we possess. If these axioms fail to hold, however, many models lose their validity. Regardless, that's something for me to study another day... in the meantime, the quote remains a compelling and interesting one, especially at this point in our lives.
Do we go off and simply do something that brings us only happiness? Is there such a thing as "only" happiness? We often hear that today: "hey, go do whatever makes you happy, whatever floats your boat..." But as Shaw points out, it's not enough just to go about bringing happiness to yourself. It's not enough just to make a boatload of money, buy a nice car and golf every Saturday afternoon. To be truly courageous we must be willing to sacrifice some of the things we love best and embrace something larger than ourselves. Well, I'm not going to make any judgments on what's a proper sacrifice... Some would say religion, others say humanity, others your nation, still others your family. But the power of the quote lies in the condemnation of the "easy life"; am i getting so self-absorbed in my own happiness that I'm missing this key aspect of the human condition -- this "intenser quality of life"?
And perhaps what we discover in this intenser quality of life -- achieved through an abandonment of excessive self-gratification -- is joy: a reward far more profound than what mere happiness can bring.
posted by Anonymous at 10:36 PM
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