Do you want what you want because you chose it, or because everyone around you wanted it first?
Most of us are handed the same advice. Get a good job. Find a partner. Have kids. Earn enough to keep it all going.
For many people, this works. It has worked for a long time. The psychologist Jordan Peterson says unless you have a very good reason, do what most people do. I think that’s fair.
But the standard advice doesn’t feel like advice. It feels like how life works, so we never ask if it fits us.
A few very old thinkers did ask. They didn’t agree with each other, and I don’t agree with all of them. But each one took a piece of the standard life and asked what it costs.
Schopenhauer: wanting is tiring
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher from the 1800s. He thought every person has a blind drive pushing them to want more. More money, more status, more of everything.
He was gloomy about it. He wished people had never existed, and I don’t go that far.
But here’s the part I agree with. Every want is a small itch. You scratch it, and another one shows up. So he said happiness isn’t about getting more. It’s a calm life with fewer demands.
Zhuangzi: you have a limit
Zhuangzi was a Chinese Taoist. He said life is limited, but the mind isn’t. You can think up a hundred goals before breakfast. You only have one body and a few decades to chase them.
His advice was to stay in the middle. Don’t chase fame. Don’t go looking for trouble. Look after your health and live out your years.
A modern philosopher, Byung-Chul Han, says we now do this to ourselves. We don’t need a boss pushing us. We push ourselves, and it ends in burnout.
Thales and Democritus: the kids question
Thales was an early Greek thinker. He didn’t want marriage or children, because he knew how much it hurts to lose someone you love.
Plutarch tells a story about him. He told his friend Solon that Solon’s son had died. Solon fell apart. Then Thales said it wasn’t true, and that this pain was why he stayed unattached. It was a rotten thing to do to a friend. He did adopt his nephew later, so he didn’t stick to it.
Democritus, the man who came up with atoms, also said it’s better not to have children. Raising them well takes huge effort, and watching them go badly is a terrible pain.
I’m not going to tell you what to do here. I’m not going to say where I landed either. That’s private, and I think it should be for everyone. I will say it wasn’t an accident.
Democritus talked about it like a sum, with costs on one side and benefits on the other. I don’t think it works like that. It’s more of a feeling, and a big one, and no list will settle it. But a feeling is still something you can look at honestly. It’s worth asking where it came from, and whether it’s yours.
Epicurus: choose your pleasures
Epicurus believed pleasure is the point of life. But he meant simple pleasures. Good food, good friends, a quiet mind.
He thought fame and huge wealth caused more trouble than they were worth. He even said sex wasn’t needed for a happy life, and that it often costs more than it gives. You can disagree with him on that. Many people do.
What matters is what he refused to do. He refused to treat something everyone wants as automatically good.
Where I stop following them
Schopenhauer skipped the chase for more. He wanted fewer demands and a calm life.
Zhuangzi skipped fame. He said life has a limit and the mind doesn’t.
Thales skipped marriage and kids, because losing someone you love hurts too much.
Democritus skipped kids too. He thought raising them cost too much peace.
Epicurus skipped sex, fame and big money. He kept to simple food, good friends and a quiet mind.
Each of them looked at what everyone else was doing and asked what it cost.
I’m not going to skip all of that just because they did. If I dropped something because Democritus said so, I’d be living on a default with an older name on it. Their answers were theirs.
What I take is the question: what is this costing me, and where did it come from?
The settings check, for happiness
This is the settings check from the manifesto, pointed at one subject. It takes about half an hour.
Write down the standard advice you’re following. Work, money, relationships, kids or no kids, how hard you push yourself. Five or six is enough.
Next to each, write chose or inherited. Be honest. “I thought about it and it suits me” counts as chosen.
Give each inherited one a verb. Keep, change or delete. Ask: if I were starting from zero, would I choose this?
Act on one this month.
If you keep the standard path, that’s a good result. You just checked first.
What they add up to
They didn’t agree on the answer. That’s why I trust the question more than any one of them.
Some people are happiest in a full house. Some are happiest in a quiet garden. The right answer depends on who’s living it.
The standard path is a good answer for many people. It only goes wrong when nobody checked it was theirs.
Hot Tabs
Things I couldn’t keep to myself.
Read: Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus. A few pages, free online, where he explains which wants are worth feeding.
Watch: Unpacking “The Burnout Society” with Paul Blaschko of Notre Dame. A clear walk through Han’s idea that we push ourselves harder than any boss would.
Try: The settings check on your own idea of happiness. Five or six pieces of standard advice, one verb each, one acted on this month.
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— Kal