It’s one thing to give voice to the teachings of past philosophers, and another to hear them yourself. I was going over Aristotle’s ethics some time ago and giving them the usual spiel about how ‘happiness’ is a quality of an entire life and that we should read Aristotle as giving us his take–which he thinks is correct for all–on the ingredients for a well-lived-life-stew. I told them that they could disagree about specific ingredients, but that they should appreciate the holistic perspective of life; that they should look at their life as an entire unit, and come up with their own recipe for a tasty stew; that they themselves had to find it tasty.
But I had never personally put on Aristotle’s spectacles. Never actually saw my life as such, never wondered what ingredients, spicy or sweet, tragic or pleasant, would give my overall life the character of “a good life,” by my own standard. Problem is without seriously abstracting from the moment and having an image of your entire life as a unit in your mind, you have no standard.
Then I stepped on a rusty nail, and that fucker went in deep in my heel. I’m talking about an inch or so. For whatever irrational reason, I kept thinking that I had been infected with something deadly. I didn’t have insurance at the time, and I didn’t take the thought that I was going to die seriously enough to go to the doctor, but the thought lingered and it triggered some other thoughts.
It specifically triggered that Aristotelian view of a whole life, and I took it somewhat seriously. This was nothing voluntary. I wasn’t forcing myself to have these thoughts anymore than I force myself to have a song stuck in my head. But I had a dream that night that my casket was being lowered into my grave. And in my dream I was looking around at who was there, who wasn’t, who seemed like they wanted to be there and who was there out of mere social obligation. And this didn’t really matter. Whether I was loved or not, whether I’d be missed or not didn’t matter. I mean, I cared that my immediate family would be hurt over my death, but I didn’t find my own life more valuable because they’d be hurt. I could even say that I wouldn’t have cared if no one was there, but then again it’s possible I say that because I’m loved and have always been loved, and consequently can’t imagine nor appreciate what it’d be like to not be loved. Moving on.
What mattered was this other thought. This question: what would I have liked to have done to make me right now satisfied with the thought of being lowered into my grave? And I had an answer, well, two to be precise. One, sons. I want sons. Healthy, intelligent, good looking and philosophically inclined sons. Two, to have written a book or two. It wouldn’t have mattered that they were well-received, that they were popular; just that I had written them and I was happy having written them.
I thought that was enough, and I still think that’s enough, but then I woke up and ever since have been wondering if that should be what determines what I do with my life; whether I should direct my efforts towards making myself satisfied with the thought of dying. Maybe it’s best to put dying out of mind, and not live hoping the stew you’ve spent your entire life preparing tastes good to that old man on his deathbed.