Meaning or happiness?

This follows up my post about self-control nicely. The following article expounds on the fact that meaning in life is complex, and a good life isn't just a happy one.

https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-better-a-happy-life-or-a-meaningful-one

If we divide our goals in life into two categories, of meaningfulness and happiness, it helps explain a number of oddities that frustrate a lot of us.

For example, it is quite common for people to say that not wanting children is selfish. If we think about it, though, having a child brings an extra burden into the world. It takes up valuable resources, and it’s usually to satisfy the parents’ desire to procreate. These same people might pursue the argument by asking who will support a childless person in old age, or keep them company. Those look like selfish reasons to me.

            Numerous studies show that parents become less happy after having children, but nonetheless wouldn’t change things if they were given the chance; a finding that seems very perverse. When we realize that happiness and meaning are different, we can understand that children bring meaning to otherwise empty lives. They provide a connection between past, present and future, and a coherent narrative arc about continuity and purpose. It is this that parents get from their children. Parents also, presumably, judge childless people as selfishly hedonistic in their desire to avoid the pain of dealing with squealing brats and the meaning of curating continuity. Parents find purpose in their lives from children, and judge others as selfish because they assume that childless people are avoiding having any purpose.

            And that’s the crux of the misunderstanding. Purpose doesn’t have to come from children. Everyone seeks meaningfulness in life, but some of us find it in thinking our own thoughts, self-expression, self-examination, campaigning about good things, voting for what is right or leaving any sort of non-child legacy for the future. In fact, I regard these attempts to have value in life as a necessary part of citizenship whether you have a child or not. And that’s what makes being called selfish for not having children so galling: the fact that these people cannot even conceive of getting meaning from doing social good, but are so blinkered that they think the only meaning achievable is from their own selfish version of it.

            Different characters get different amounts of meaning from social relationships. Meaning comes from working through difficult issues; happiness comes from sharing good times. Difficult issues don’t cause happiness, so many misunderstandings probably arise because people are looking for different things from a relationship. I am happy to help my friends, but I’m not looking for meaning from them, whereas others might think that the major purpose of friendship and relationships is mutual support; to build continuity with each other.

            Our culture certainly teaches people, especially women, that meaning comes mainly from marriage and children. Meaning is more culturally determined than happiness, and so I suspect that a lot of people are looking to marry and have children not only because of biological instinct, but cultural bias. And that upsets me, because I’m looking for neither. I reject the cultural imposition, and people who look to impose it annoy me.

I don’t want other people to soothe my insecurities because that’s not where I want meaning, yet people actively want to find out about them, because that builds mutual meaning in our lives. I can happily miss out on company if someone is feeling grumpy or tiresome, but for many people putting up with those moods is the essence of friendship. I don’t think of myself as a lesser friend; I just don’t have that masochistic need.

For many I probably am a lesser friend, or maybe just an acquaintance. They need something from friendships that I don’t give. But people who have that need should understand that this isn’t because I’m a lesser person. It’s a question of compatibility, not me being objectionable. They have a need that I don’t want to satisfy, and that makes each of us inappropriate for the other.

Self control

Imagine someone wants you to exert no control over your waste-related bodily functions. Imagine that your partner (or a prospective partner) expects you to wet yourself in joy or sadness and finds your control disappointing. Maybe the person even finds the smell a nice, natural sign of emotional engagement.

What would you say? What would you do? If we assume you don’t run away from the freak and never speak to the person again, you’d have to explain that’s simply not how you work any more (since you were potty-trained). You have control over this function, and it’s not control that you can reverse. You could, theoretically, deliberately wet yourself (only in private), but it wouldn’t show emotional engagement in the same way. It would be a deliberate act of communication to satisfy a demand that makes no sense to you, not an automatic signal of what you’re feeling. You’d be wetting yourself deliberately to show joy or sadness because that’s the message your partner wants, not because that’s how your body works.

Of course, you’d not wet yourself. That would be disgusting. You probably feel repulsed at the thought. And besides, would you remember to wet yourself every time you were happy in your partner’s presence? That would be exhausting! It’s not anywhere near your mind; you’re probably too busy being happy in a normal way.

Of course, your partner might be unhappy with you those times. It’d be clear that your partner wasn’t in your mind and your weren’t thinking of your partner, and didn’t care enough. And if your partner took that attitude, after you’d actually accepted this crazy demand and acted on it on occasion, you’d feed pretty fed up with constant pressure to do something that you don’t like and doesn’t come naturally. You’d definitely be upset for being judged for the odd omission when it’s a big effort to do it at all.

Now imagine that you’re a quiet person without much intrinsic desire to communicate with other people just for the fun of it. Imagine that, perhaps, you’ve been bullied throughout your childhood. You will have learned never to show interest or curiosity in other people. Your impulses to blurt out ‘tell me more’ about some interesting thing another person has done, or to display your sadness at others’ discomfort, in so far as those impulses existed in a quiet introvert at all, are now entirely controlled. This helped you avoid the bullying of people who would seize on any attempt at social interaction as weakness to be mocked. You no longer miss people or feel a need for them (if you ever did), or perhaps you do but you have learned never to act on it or think about it. You merely enjoy good company when it happens.

            You have full control over such impulses, just as almost everyone has full control over when they expel their bodily waste. These impulses simply no longer exist for you, and you have learned to think of them as somewhat distasteful. They are indeed a sign of weakness and dependence; they hand power over to others and are a hostage to fortune. They are for children who need their Mummies, not for grown adults. If you’re a man, there’ll be an element of macho culture there too. If you’re English, there’s a cultural pressure to be a mature, sensible adult rather than a childish Mediterranean-style emo-wreck.

            With this background, you might nonetheless encounter a partner who expects you to emote regularly, as a sign that you are emotionally engaged. Many people across the world regard simple things such as remembering to ask about life events, showing shock and sympathy at others’ bad news, blurting out sweet nothings and responding to them in kind as standard, expected signs of emotional engagement.

            But for some of us, these things no longer come naturally, if they ever did, and it feels odd to do them. When such a person remembers to do them, it’s a conscious effort akin to you remembering to wet yourself for a particularly weird partner. People can say that it’s just natural to say these things, and all I can say in reply is that it’s perfectly natural to wet yourself; that’s why babies do it. But humans can train themselves to be more controlled, and whether you call it mature or emotionally isolated is an opinion that’s arguable both ways.

            I understand that many people need these signs of engagement, and rely on them in a way that explicit verbal reassurances of friendship can never provide. I understand that most people think it’s the job of a partner to spot signs of insecurity and offer reassurance. I’m sorry that these people can’t have fulfilling relationships with quiet or bullied people, but they’re not being deliberately unpleasant. It’s reasonable to display some forbearance, and not attack them for being rude. I understand others; is it too much to ask them to try to understand me?