guppiecat

Post the second, a musing.

Likely, this is a post that only people like

hitchhiker will like, so...

I've been pondering lately about concepts like "success" and "quality of life". By most measures, I am quite successful at life. I have an interesting and challenging job, I am paid pretty well by the job, I have a good credit rating, and I have all the accouterments that one generally associates with success (house, car, etc). However, I'm generally not a happy person. I realize that happiness is something that has to be worked at. In ancient Greek culture happiness was equated with the process, while in modern Western culture, it seems to be equated with the result of the process. Maybe this is a holdover of Calvin's protestant work ethic, I don't know.

So, in thinking of this, I came to a realization. In general, we Americans are considerably less educated than we once were. (Compare newspaper articles from the 1700s to those now if you don't believe me). We also tend to simplify things, likely to excess. So, what I realized was that I have been following the standard American pattern to success:

1) Work hard + suffer + get money + use money to buy happiness == happiness
2) If happiness.yours > happiness.others == you win at life
3) If not, work harder, suffer more, buy more happiness, GOTO 2.

Which, when you put into a formula like this, makes it look really really stupid... even ignoring the fact that it says that suffering and happiness are directly proportional. For those who are math adverse, this is like saying that the best way to lose weight is to eat cake. If you want to lose weight faster, eat more cake.

Oh yeah, if you are math adverse, you'll likely want to bail out now, as it's about to get weird.

See, what is really going on, is that this is a multidimensional problem. You have the following variables (that I can think of now, I'm sure that there are more):

* Money
* Gratification at work
* Gratification at home
* Spiritual growth
* Comfort at home
* Favorable comparisons against others

The measure of a "life" that we are taught in Western culture, is that you add all of these together and if you get a number bigger than anyone else's, you're better than everyone else. Since money is the easiest to get a real number for, and it can be converted into objects that effect the measurement of the others, it is often weighted more heavily than the others.

Not only is this bad economics, it's also bad math. These are independent variables!

The way it should be measured is that each of these represent a weighted component of a multidimensional vector. Yes, the length of the vector matters, and longer is better (see, the spam is right, you're just not measuring the organ, but the origin!). However, the particulars of measurement vary between people.

Example (taken to extremes):

Bob works as a lawyer for a high-profile firm. He makes over $100k a year. He has a huge house, he has eleventeen cars -- mostly convertibles. He works 60 hours a week. However, when he is not working, he feels a sense of loneliness with which he deals by having a succession of shallow relationships and buying things for himself and his current gf.

Carol, on the other hand, works part time at a book store, because she likes books. She spends her extra time volunteering for various causes, because it makes her feel good to help others. She lives in an apartment in an OK, but not great part of town. She takes the bus. She's been a committed relationship for many years, but is not married because she doesn't really see the point. She also regularly attends her church/synagogue/place of worship.

OK, Bob obviously weights his vector components with emphasis on Money, Comfort at home, and Favorable comparisons against others. Carol weights hers with emphasis on Gratification at work, Gratification at home, and Spiritual growth.

Now, since we're in an extreme example, that's go the step further and assume that by some amount of jiggering with the weights, both vectors are exactly the same length. However, as you are obviously familiar with multi-dimensional multi-variable calculus, you an intuit that the vectors point in different directions.

I'll say that again, to be completely clear.

Bob's and Carol's life vectors are the same length but point in different directions

With me so far?

Now, in addition to the measure of your life, your life is also moving in a particular direction. Also, you can move in these directions at different rates. To go back to our example:

Bob's been following the American plan, so his life is moving slowly, he has achieved all his goals, so it's just a matter of continuing in his direction but there is no rush.

Carol has decided that it is not worth dealing the hassles of serving people in the bookstore in which she works, so she is considering a shift to the smaller, independent book store nearby, even though it means a reduction in pay.

So, in this scenario, Carol's life has a value and direction, and her frame of reference is moving fairly quickly in a similar direction. Bob's life has a value and direction, and his frame of reference is moving somewhat slowly in a similar direction as his life vector...

Now, assume that there is a maximum cap on the speed of life.

Depending on what this is, this means Bob and Carol may or may not perceive relativistic effects in their perceptions of one another's lives. In other words, by simply having a life and having that life being a moving and fluid thing, it effects the measurement of other lives! To be clear:

If two people's lives are moving in different directions, but their life vectors point in a similar direction as their life's movement, they will perceive their own lives accurately, but their view of the other's life will be shortened.

In other words, if Bob perceives Carol's life to have significantly less value than his AND Carol perceives Bob's life to have significantly less value than hers, EVEN THOUGH a neutral observer sees the lives to have exactly the same value!

Hope you're still with me, because I have one more level.

Suppose that Bob suddenly has a heart attack and has to spend a week in the hospital. While there, he meets Carol, who is volunteering at the hospital helping people learn to relax. A few weeks ago, Carol and her partner separated and Carol can no longer afford to live in her apartment. In talking with Carol, Bob reevaluates his life and sees that he's been missing a lot, mostly in terms of gratification. Carol looks at Bob and thinks that he has it made, as he never has to worry about money.

In other words, Carol re-weights her life to add emphasis to money, and Bob re-weights his to add emphasis to emphasize gratification at home. This means that, from each of their perspectives, the length of their own life vectors shorten. However, the perceived lengths the other's vector suddenly lengthens. In a general case, this would result in improved appreciation for one another, that starts to match that of the neutral observer.

However, let's complicate matters, and assume that Bob and Carol decide to change the direction of their lives. Carol stops some of her volunteering and takes a higher paying job that she doesn't like as much. Bob cuts his hours to 45 per week, and discovers a new-found passion for painting watercolours.

So, now the vectors are not only re-weighted, but moving. If we assume that these are fairly rapid life changes, even though the direction of the vectors has not changed, the re-weighting shortens each person's own vector and appears to lengthen the other's. The movement adds relativistic effects, and distorts the vectors, such that each perceives the other's vector to be longer than their own, and therefore more desirable.

In effect, the measure of a life is complicated, and depending on how you do it, you run the risk of considering another's life to be worthless, or suffer considerable envy for the other, in other words, the "grass is greener" phenomenon.

Relativistic effects in lives cause greenshift!

So, what does this mean for me?

I believe that I have over weighted "money" and under weighted "gratification at home" and "spirituality". I think that my weights of other variables are reasonable. So, I will try to spend less money, save more, and focus my time at home on re-centering on myself. As I do this, I will be conscious of how I perceive others, try to realize that people who are on the same path I was on are still valid, and that I likely have a distorted view of those who are on the path that I am now on.

Thoughts?