Minor Philosophy

If you had the choice between living for only six more months, but knowing those six months would be the happiest of your existence, or living a long but ultimately unsatisfying life, which would you choose? Why?

That was a question posed by my friend Ana Cristina to me via my Formspring account. My answer was less than satisfactory:

Six more months. It comes down to a personal philosophy I have, one that would take an entire blog post to explain. Huh, maybe I should get on that sometime.

Well, sometime has now arrived I believe, so I'll make an effort to explain that piece of personal philosophy here.

I once read an analogy about the pain-pleasure binary, long before I was studying these sorts of relationships at university. In fact, I think I might have read this particular analogy before I was in high school, even. It is as follows:

"Two men are standing on level ground, each with a large pile of bricks. Both are challenged to build a high tower with their pile. The first man immediately starts to stack his bricks, overlapping in such a way that the structure is sound. The second man instead takes a shovel and begins to dig a hole. Laughing, the first man taunts him.

"'We have the same number of bricks, fool! By starting your tower lower than mine it will be impossible to build one higher.'

"The second man smiles, but doesn't reply. Once he is happy with the depth of his hole, he begins to stack his bricks, emulating the pattern of the first man. The first man continues to taunt him.

"After some time, the second man's tower has achieved the same height as that of the first man. When the first man goes to start the next layer of his tower, it starts to wobble and sway. He braces it with his hands, but realizes that if he continues to build upwards the structure will fall.

"Seeing this, the second man smiles once more. Supported by a firm foundation, he continues to add layers of brick to his tower, winning the challenge."

The bricks represent the men's happiness, the ground their experience of pain or unhappiness. Even if the two men's towers had been equal in height, the second man would have used more of his bricks in constructing his.

Don't get it? Try to remember a time you were at your most sad state, at your lowest, if you will. One of my friends lost her best friend last year, and I wasn't sure what to do. Remember, I'm a green - I don't do well with emotional matters. So I wrote a short note reminding this friend that she had a whole family of supporters here at the university. I slipped the note under her door when she was in class with a teabag. She still maintains that that was one of the most thoughtful and caring things that anyone has ever done for her.

A note and a teabag.

Because she was at such a low point, coming back up to level ground was an enormous jump in her happiness.

Is this starting to make sense?

Now, back to the question at hand: would I rather take 6 months of bliss or a lifetime of mediocrity. There's a second part to my happiness philosophy that is integral to the answer I gave. Again, this will probably be most accessible if I frame it as a serious of questions to you.

Think about the best day or week you have ever had. What made that time so amazing? Likely, it was because something little went just right, and things kept going up from there. That's the key: things kept going up. The most recent experience you have becomes your base for comparison. Taking a very green approach to this, to continue being happy you need to have a more positive experience. Anything less will cause you to be unhappy, and experiences at the same "level" will likely not elicit any emotional response.

Look back at the example of my friend: had she been at level ground or in a state of happiness at the time, my gesture would have meant very little to her. Yes, she might have been thankful for my thoughfulness, but it would not have impacted her emotionally in the same way.

Savvy?

I think this post is becoming much too long. Feel free to fill up the comments section with questions, critiques, or your own personal philosophies.

tower photo by me