Brian Christian, from The Most Human Human: “Nothing is more dispiriting than ‘And they all lived happily ever after,’ which means, in information entropy terms, ‘And then nothing interesting or noteworthy ever happened to them again for the rest of their lives.’” There’s a pull in all of us towards ‘happily ever after’. The idea […]
World Travel or Finding Passion Won’t Escape Who You Are
Living in a foreign culture for one year, what struck me most was how many things were the same as at home. Not just cultural similarities, although between France and Canada there are many, but similarities in my life. I remember one night in Paris, the girl I had been seeing for a few weeks […]
Does Dreaming Smaller Result in Living Happier?
How much is enough? What level of monthly income is enough? What level of fitness is enough? How good a relationship is enough? How much success and impact on the world is enough? We, as a culture, rarely ask these questions. The dominant viewpoint is always maximization: don’t ask what’s enough, but ask how to […]
Should You Strive to Live Happily or to Live Good?
Should your priority for living be happiness or virtue? Is it better to be a happy person of mediocre character, or noble and melancholic? I believe this is one of the biggest questions you can ask yourself. Not only because it guides so many life decisions, but because it changes your approach to life. The […]