"Having only wisdom and talent is the lowest tier of usefulness."
—Hagakure
"Ability without a sense of duty, purpose, or service does very little."
—Sebastian Marshall
I see such an obsession with happiness these days. It's sad.
There's different sorts of happiness, but the one people seem after the most is the lowest, saddest form of happiness—a pleasurable mix of biochemicals.
Do you know how cocaine works? It's what's known as a triple-reuptake inhibitor. It makes some of the happiness chemicals—serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine—cycle out of your brain more slowly, giving you wonderful feelings.
And—so what? You've got more happiness chemicals in your brain so you bliss out? How could anyone in their right mind think this is the meaning of life?
I try to do things that I find meaningful, ideally on the largest scale I can. I'm not there yet, but I'm trying. I still need to get stronger in other areas, get more disciplined. But I'm working on it.
I figure, if I chase meaning, the happiness and fun largely takes care of itself. To be sure, some happiness is important—it's important the way good respiration, circulation, and good immune system is important. It's part of being a healthy, functioning human.
But as a meaning of life? Really? Optimizing your biochemistry for happiness? You're kidding, right? When I read about people who devote their lives to happiness, I feel like I've walked on stage of an obscure dry humor comedy, and I'm the only one who doesn't get the joke. Happiness? Really?
Don't get me wrong—happiness is important. I'd put it right up there in importance with good respiration, circulation, and immune system. You should spend some researching the basics of happiness, and do enough of that stuff to be happy enough. And once a satisfactory level of happiness is achieved, why not do meaningful things? You could build, you could work on great things, you could become single-minded for a cause—these are so much better than the lowest forms of happiness.
Happiness? Pfft. MEANING.
My Definitive "Meaning Over Happiness" Essay
How do you measure meaning if not in terms of happiness?
What's meaningful is a personal decision everyone makes. I'd recommend everyone learn a lot about a variety of things, analyze themselves and their talents, and think about what seems meaningful to them through careful, as-unemotional-as-possible analysis.
For me, I like humanity and I want to see our species thrive. I think a significant long term priority has to be diversifying our habitat—getting it so not all humans live on Earth, moving out through the Solar System and hopefully the galaxy after that.
That's going to take a mix of science, technology, engineering, commerce, governance, and a variety of other important things. I also think art has very high value in inspiring and expressing emotional states to people. On a personal level, I also enjoy beauty and aesthetics, but I'd prioritize it a bit lower than expansion.
Aren't things that create more happiness for a longer time for a larger number of individuals better than those things who lack those qualities but are proclaimed to be personal achievements anyway?
I don't think so, no.
See, it's hard to have this discussion with anyone from modern Western culture, because happiness-as-a-goal is so deeply engrained that people don't even realize it's just a subjective call about what's important. Actually, most people never critically examined happiness at all!
For me, I had a breaking out moment when I studied other cultures that had goals other than happiness. If you could talk to a 1600′s samurai and tried to discuss with him what's important, he'd say loyalty, duty, and honor. If you said, "Wait, what about happiness? Isn't that more important?"—well, he'd think you're insane. He couldn't express why—it was just a culturally inherited belief.
Well, the same thing happens to me when I say that I prize, for instance, duty and loyalty over happiness. If I'm duty-bound in a situation, I'll aim to perform my duties as best as I can, happiness be damned. A lot of times, the best solutions aren't necessarily the largest number of happiness solution. (Again, trying to explain this to a person who grew up in a happiness-is-most-important culture risks making you seem off your rocker, just like a modern Westerner trying to explain that happiness is more important than duty and loyalty would seem crazy to a samurai.)
Does the scope of happiness make happiness meaningful to you or not?
I'm not sure what this question means.
If you're talking about different kinds of happiness, I think there are some, yeah. There's "low happiness" which is just a pleasurable mix of chemicals—dopamine, serotonin, etc. Honestly, I don't think having a certain biochemical mix is very important.
Imagine Rome in the year 150 AD. Now image a 25 year old farmer on April 20th.
Does it matter at all what his dopamine and serotonin mix was? I think, pretty much no, as long as it wasn't too low.
Mind you, I do think happiness is important. I think it's as important as respiration or blood circulation or other key health factors. That's really, really important. Happiness too low makes you ineffective, and happiness to zero probably becomes fatal. So, happiness is important, just like good health is. I just don't think it's worthy of being worshiped as the meaning of life.
What are achievements good for if they aren't good at facilitating happiness?
I'm on Team Human. I want to see our species thrive and grow. A lot of times, the people that pull humanity forwards do immense amounts of suffering and go through utter brutality to bring their views forth. I think that's worthy.
Imagine you wouldn't experience any pleasant or unpleasant emotions and would have to decide rationally what to pursue (assuming that is possible at all). Then what you want to do with your life?
That's exactly the question I asked myself, and it's what I'm working on. I don't usually laundry-list all the stuff I'm working on, because it's crass, but I'm in near constant training, producing, and looking to connect with people doing fantastic things. I'd like to see commerce improve, science improve, governance improve, culture improve, communications improve… I think the easiest way to have a huge positive impact on humanity is to have children and raise them well, so that's a priority for me.
I've been trying to lay the groundwork necessary to do things at a really high level, and largely succeeding… mind you, this isn't glorious or anything. It's just a bunch of scratching and clawing to improve my habits, consistency, health, knowledge, and ability to produce and serve. I don't have all the resources I need to do what I want to do yet, so I still do a good bit of contracting, building, selling, getting assets, and otherwise getting paid.
I've been trying to develop my scientific ability and learning more about experiment design, statistics. I'm particularly interested in neurology and biochemistry type stuff, but I'm really quite an amateur in that. So far, a lot of the experimenting I've been doing is pretty low level stuff (again, amateur and working on lots of other things), but I've figured a couple interesting things out here and there.
I write this site as a sideline thing I'm doing. I've been developing my mind and trade more. I read… I don't know, somewhere between 100 and 200 books a year? (Well, a third of those I listen to on audio, and another third I "fastread" which is somewhere between reading and skimming)
I've tried a little drawing and painting, but the mediums aren't for me. Writing works okay, though I'm still developing my craft as a writer.
I've connected with a few hundred people over the last year, which is good. Many excellent, exceptional people. I'm trying to figure out how to keep track of all of them and everyone, the people I've met are so cool and so good, but man, it's hard to keep track of 300 new interesting people in my life. I really need some sort of CRM-ish-software or relational database or something.
And then yeah, I'm traveling through pretty much every country in the world, seeing how their governance works, how their law enforcement works. I go for long walks through cities while listening to audiobooks, noting the mix of businesses in each region, what people wear, how they're dressed. I look at the law enforcement and military presences. I look for shipping docks and railroads and border crossings. I've been intending to meet government officials more often, and I've started doing that—in Mongolia, I toured the Mongolian Stock Exchange, Clearinghouse, and I also met some people at their Bureau of Tourism and Central Bank.
I've been meaning to walk into an Embassy or Consular and ask if I can be of service to the American State Department somehow, but I've been too … shy or something to do that thus far. In '09, I applied to be a reserve officer of the LAPD (volunteer police officering), but unfortunately I wasn't accepted at that time. That's something I still intend to do—I think intelligent law enforcement and foreign service are the backbone of domestic and foreign affairs, respectively. I'd like to put some time in protecting and serving.
Beyond that, I study law kind of casually and amateurishly (I've taken a couple courses in it, almost became a lawyer … I read regulations and decisions sometimes for the heck of it). I've been doing lots of reading on governance, statesmanship, law, and lots of history.
Business, of course. I've written about that plenty in the past. Lately I've been putting a lot of time into getting better at distribution and marketing, which I'm starting to think are of as of core importance to business.
Finance too. I was on a finance kick earlier this year.
I don't normally like to write stuff like this, because it tends to be taken the wrong way. You know, my friends and confidants and mentors and colleagues know that I've got a silly and ridiculous amount of ambition to to do things, build, accomplish, and serve. But this is a public facing blog, and you know, people … I don't know, a lot of times they don't like stuff like this.
You asked what I'd do if emotion didn't matter? That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I fall short a lot of the time, I still waste probably around 3-5 hours a day on average, but I'm getting better.
In short, I think:
Rule an Empire, Fistful of Rice
I'd like to introduce you to my all-time favorite comic series, Lone Wolf and Cub. It's incredibly deep philosophically.
Ogami Itto, "Lone Wolf," is on a quest for revenge after something terrible happened to him. With him is his little son Daigoro. Itto is doing assassinations to raise money for his quest.
In Volume 3, The Flute of the Fallen Tiger, Itto comes across a fallen samurai named "Sakon." Sakon left being a samurai and now makes money begging and playing carnival games. With his money, he eats nice food and drinks, and he cares very much about people. He buys little Daigoro a toy.
Daigoro is in training by his father for the quest they're on. Itto cuts the toy in half with his sword. Itto says, "The top spins and stops. You make it spin again. But Daigoro, our road never stops. The day we stop is the day we are split asunder—like this top." Itto goes to leave with his son.
Sakon says, "Wait! Have you no pity for your son? Don't you want him to be a strong, gentle, upright man, with compassion for the sorrows of the world?"
Itto replies, "I understand. I know why you bought him the top. But the path we walk is as I just said - ." Sakon interrupts Itto and says, "Walking a half mat. Sleeping, one mat. Rule the nation, a fistful of rice.
"No matter how many people you kill, countries you steal, fortunes you plunder, or titles you earn… you only cover half a straw mat when you sit, one when you sleep, and your stomach only holds a fistful of rice!"
Sakon pours himself a big drink of highly potent alcohol sake and drinks it in one gulp. Itto already refused alcohol from Sakon earlier—Itto doesn't drink.
Sakon continues: "Why not see this world through human eyes? Why not live a human life for your son?"
Itto doesn't reply.
Sakon continues, telling Itto we only get a limited time on Earth before dying—why kill for money? Why not live a normal life? Sakon says, "Abandon the assassin's way!"
Itto replies now: "It is the path we have sought and chosen, father and son together! There is no going back, no going astray!" Itto explains that they're on a quest, and says, no more questions!
Sakon grows stronger. "Killing for money is evil in the eyes of the world! … I cannot permit your assassin's road!"
This leads a long, well-drawn duel between Sakon and Itto, both fallen samurai. It's both exciting and beautiful, but many pages long. We'll skip past it—Itto wins by throwing his katana at Sakon, catching him off-guard.
Sakon falls with a crash. Itto says, you had me beat. Why didn't you strike? Sakon says, "I thought it was a draw with your style of swordsmanship … ."
Itto says, no, you would have won! Sakon says, still confused, "I lunged forward, sure I would win. But for a samurai to throw away his sword at the first stroke … ."
Itto: "If the sword is the samurai's soul, yes. But to me, a sword is just a tool for killing, no more sacred than a club or a shard of rock."
Sakon understands. "Heh heh heh… and I thought I'd given up being a samurai. I guess I kept the soul… heh… too funny. You're a holy terror, Ogami Itto! The perfect assassin, abandoning body and soul… seeking life in the moment of death!"
Sakon reminds Itto, "Walking a half mat, sleeping, one mat. Rule the nation, a fistful of rice. But… but… when we die, a fistful of ash. That's all we are, Ogami Itto! Abandon the assassin's road! Think of your child's future… return to the world of the living… head my dying wish."
Sakon dies, Itto retrieves his sword and walks on with Daigoro. He thinks to himself, "It is said a path cannot be taught, only lived. But there are some lessons that sear the heart … . I'll never forget your words … ."
Sakon doesn't understand, can't understand Itto. He thinks Itto is motivated by money—but he's not. The money is a tool for Itto to complete his quest. The same as his sword, or a club, or a shard of rock.
Sakon thinks he stands for something—poverty and love of humanity—but he's unable to devote himself fully to it. He fills his belly with food and drinks alcohol. Because Sakon isn't devoted to a quest, he can't win in the fight—Itto throws his katana, something unheard-of for a samurai. The katana was regarded as the soul of a samurai, for Itto—it's nothing. Just another tool.
Sakon has not devoted himself entirely to one goal, not given himself over to one purpose, so he can't understand Itto. He says, "No matter how much money, your belly only holds one fistful of rice." It's true, but Itto doesn't eat food for enjoyment, he eats for nutrition. He doesn't cloud his mind for drink. He is unified, mind, body, and spirit, for the road that he walks with his son.
Sakon has a mix of principles including having a nice life, compassion for others, treating people well, and samurai ethics. Because he stands for not one thing, his goals are conflicted. He misunderstands Itto, who stands for just one thing, the quest he lives. All else is secondary to Itto. Itto has many principles, but he never loses sight of his quest.
If Sakon devoted his life exclusively to having a nice life, he could have had an amazing life. If he devoted his life only to serving people, he could have been an amazing servant. If he devoted his life only to protecting people, he could have been an amazing guardian. If he devoted his life only to being a samurai, he could have been the best samurai he could have been.
But he didn't. Thus, he had a slightly nice life, some food and alcohol, had some fun with people, tried to help some people, but in the end—was ineffective and died without accomplishing much.
Still, Itto respects people who have principles and are willing to die for them, and looks to remember Sakon's lessons. Itto is a good man. Sakon, too. But Sakon is conflicted, serving many masters. His belly and drink, protecting people, treating people nicely, operating a carnival game, being a samurai—these can't and don't work together. He doesn't walk one road like Itto. A man like Itto walks one road, and gives up much of his humanity to do so. He does not have "a nice life"—he eats for nutrition, sleeps for rest, but does not eat delicacies, stay in nice places, or drink alcohol nor smoke tobacco. Itto protects the innocent when it doesn't interfere with his quest because he is basically a good person, but he does not let this role interfere with his quest. He lives samurai ethics—but abandons them when necessary for his quest, occasionally starting a brushfire, avalanche, or ambushing an unarmed man.
This is similar to real life. People who look for a "nice life" and don't stand for anything in particular often don't understand the single-minded obsession of people on a quest. You hear normal people sometimes say, "He's got 10 billion dollars? Why does he need so much? You can't buy anything with that you couldn't for a small fraction of it." But a billionaire becomes a billionaire almost never for love of nice food and alcohol. The normal person is correct—you can only spend so many millions on a nice life, and in then end our belly only holds one fistful of rice.
No, most people who accomplish amazing things do it because it's the road they walk. Yes, if you rule the nation, your belly still only holds a fistful of rice. But rarely do people who found nations care about what's in their belly. They wouldn't reach the height of greatness if they did.
Normal people can't understand this. People with mixed and conflicted goals can't understand this. And occasionally they try to position themselves between the single-minded person and his goal—this usually ends in tragedy for the normal person. When someone eats, sleeps, breathes, walks, works, lives with one purpose, he will usually achieve that purpose. Barriers erected are climbed, gone around, evaded, or—if necessary—destroyed. Rule an empire, a fistful of rice? Indeed. But people who build empires know that best of all.
Why Build? Because I Like Humanity
Why build? Why work on science, entrepreneurship, writing, building a family, and so on?
And I think the best answer is because I like humanity. Humans are cool. Oh, there are some knuckleheads, heck maybe there are even more knuckleheads than there are really cool people.
I'm really, really grateful to the scientists and engineers and inventors and builders and artists that came before us. We'd be living in forests and jungles and caves if it weren't for them. And I'm grateful for the long line of my ancestors that survived and thrived to lead to me. I figure some of them must have lived under really desperate circumstances, gone through all sorts of struggle and strife and misery, but they still were able to have and raise their children that eventually became my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and so on. If one link in that chain isn't there, I'm not here. So, wow, I'm so grateful for my ancestors doing that.
So I'd like to pay it forwards. I'll build some stuff that will be used in our lifetimes, and then will help all generations henceforth. I'll have some children and help build the next line of humanity, and all lines after that.
I like building. I like humanity. I'd like to see us grow and thrive and expand. I can't really think of anything else I'd rather do with my time.
What's the difference between a person who is genuinely very useful and a person who just does useful things for people all the time because he wants to appear to be very useful?
There isn't one.
It's always interesting for me to see how people weight intentions and results.
Me? I'm like 99% results/1% intentions. If someone consistently acts in an excellent, upstanding, thorough, efficient, consistent, helpful in order to … boost their reputation or get paid or get promoted or whatever, that's totally cool with me.
This is contrary to how most people in society think. They'd prefer someone with altruistic motives who is a bit of a screw-up than someone with self-interested motives who behaves well.
One counter-point would be, "Well, you can count on the natural altruist more"—and y'know what? It's a good point, but I think oftentimes it's not a concern.
By doing an action repeatedly, eventually you become the kind of person who does that action. If you repeatedly ask, "What can I do to come across as helpful?" and execute on that, then you become a helpful person.
Intentions are worth looking at, especially when someone screws up. If they screw up with good intentions, it's less of a damning thing than if they screw up with bad intentions. But in the end, it's still a screw up either way.
If someone performs well, treats people well, does well—then their intentions don't matter all that much, as long as they can be expected to continue to consistently act that way.
The natural implication of this? If you're not already useful and helpful, you can just do actions in order to appear useful and helpful anyways. You'll wind up becoming useful and helpful as a result.