Being happy cannot be the ultimate goal of life. If it is, then you're defining it much much too narrowly.
You can take a couple of pills every day and be happy for the rest of your life.
I took mild anti-depressants for a few days to address nicotine withdrawal (Quit smoking et al). They do make you happy....I mean HAPPY in every sense of the word...and that was just the mild stuff.
So if happiness is the ultimate goal of your life it is just a couple of pills away. They don't even cost that much :).
The problem is that you knew that it was artificial, and that knowledge made you unhappy. Its the result of our moral makeup. Most ppl me included wud not feel happy if they knew that their happiness was induced by pills. But somehow if our moral standards were different we would actually feel happy, barring the second factor which is the damage to health issue. Either your health would actually get affected, which would make you unhappy, or else, the knowledge that the pills can affect health you keep bothering you and therefore make you happy. Being happy is the broadest possible goal in life, if you understand the word happy in the sense it is meant to. If you think about this long enough without the objective of writing a reply to my comment, you will eventually get it.
Just as most ppl dont feel happy taking the help of pills to feel happy, it is quite natural that ppl dont like inertia. That is a function of your moral make-up. You got to decide which one is easier for you - to alter your moral makeup so that inertia does not bother you, or else force yourself to overcome inertia. Both these routes, would ultimately take you to the same destination - that of taking your one step closer to being happy.
It is not that I don't understand what you are saying. And I definitely 'get it'. I just disagree with the the idea of happiness being the goal of one's life.
At the end of it...I think we all want to matter in one way or another.
I disagree with "At the end of it...I think we all want to matter in one way or another" It doesn't matter if I matter, for matter mattering would be a danged eternal quest because the matter of mattering is something that other matter decides. And there is just too much matter around. Not to mention all the damned anti-matter we haven't found yet.
I think you should try not to get all matter-nal about this and understand that I disagree about "we all" in that sentence the most. I am happy that it matters for you.
The broad goal of my life IS happiness. Without having to defend that against any reductive arguments or straw man semantics either :) Cheers
To put it another way, that sentence should read "At the end of it...I think I want to matter in one way or another". It does change your argument considerably when read like that.
But if u say "we all want to matter in one way or another", and "we" obviously includes zap, and he himself confesses that he does not want to matter, r u saying that he is lying?
Secondly, mattering to someone is what makes you happy. If you dont believe that, think about this - NOT mattering to anyone is not something that you like, that state does not give you happiness. Ergo, mattering to someone makes you happy. So the ultimate goal is happiness. QED.
Don't be silly. I am saying that what you think today as your life's goal could be very different from what you think by the time your life comes to an end. Hence everything you, I and Zap think at this time is an opinion and not an absolute truth.
That is why this discussion can go on endlessly (and shows every signs of it).
On that mattering = happiness thing. I could punch a few holes in that logic, but that will not take us anywhere.
So if it makes you happy :-) ....You are right. Happiness perhaps is the simplest life goal of most peoples lives.
PS: This discussion would be more fun over alcohol. The multiple day 3 way thing is all too serious and tiring.
May 07, 2009 
