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.
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.
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