Life is all about harmony. Harmony with God, with the people around you, with yourself and the world.

Good answer? ;)

And you have to have at least 227 Daggers on webdiplomacy.net.

That's a start ;) But why do you *need* to be happy?

Good life is just something that I will never ever experience.
Living is about wanting something that you don't have and when you get it you then want something else. This is being a human. Being constantly unsatisfied. You have to be a moron to experience more than small moments of happiness.
Sorry if you consider my opinion depressing.

"You have to be a moron to experience more than small moments of happiness."

I didn't know. I'm going to be a 'retarded person mentall equal to a child between eight and twelve years old' from now on.

a good life is owning a 1984 fender american stratocaster

why 8 to 12?

Just be happy with what you've got.

The 'homo economicus' is just a gigantic fraud to sell stuff to people. ;)

@hellalt: That sounds Buddhist, but without the "ending desire ends suffering" part.

That's what it said in the handy-dandy Webster's New World Dictionary.

Ending desire is a good way to avoid unhappiness. I have tried it in some aspects for years and failed miserably...

being with really good friends on a lovely summer afternoon somewhere like Miami, a cottage in the woods, maybe even a nice penthouse in the winter in galicia spain. friends, a feeling a warmth from weather or otherwise, a drink in hand, and free of worries like when on vacation. whenever i am in this situation i always say "this is the good life" - all my friends give me heck for it ;D

True that. One of the things in life I really enjoy is talking and eating with good friends.

Oh, and to the OP, a good life is a meaningful life. The trick is to find the meaning, which can be found in love, achievement, art, experiences, or even suffering. Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor who authored "Man's Search for Meaning," wrote that his experiences there proved to him that "he who has a 'why' can endure almost any 'how.'" (Nietzsche coined that particular aphorism.)

Well, I suppose I kind of like drinking absinthe and using drugs with some good friends, lol!

@hellalt: collectively wasting yourself because life is all about suffering? :o

I'm an expert in wasting myself. At least that is a more entertaining way of doing it :P

The good life is heaven.

Whoa! I brought religion with full force into this topic.

LOL, what about the second (my) post then? ;)

The good life is when you have a feeling of contentedness; and no, I don't believe that is impossible. However, I also don't believe that the feeling is supposed to be perpetual, but rather a compilation of all those little moments over your lifetime.

When your mom kissed an injury to make it better.
A parent said he/she is proud of you.
You aced a test.
You kissed your first girl (or boy)
A drink w/ friends.
You achieved a goal.
You read a great book.
The time your newborn baby took his/her first breath and cried.
When the kids think you're perfect.
When the kids realize you're not:)
You bought your first car.
When you laughed, when you cried...when you......

Living the good life is simply about living life. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

And not to be all sappy or anything, but one of the biggest components of living the good life is to love and knowing that you are loved. Doesn't cost a damn thing.

The good life happens when stress is far removed, and you are fully faced with satisfaction and contentment of yourself and those close to you.

@LanGaiden- doesnt cost a thing...and yet it is so damn elusive...

That's why it is so elusive, because it doesn't cost a lot, yet it is incredibly valuable.

Not to be confused with marriage, which costs a lot and is usually not filled with love after a few years.

Alright, so love, family, friends, feeling good, harmony with God. But what about a nice house? Enough food so you don't always feel hungry? A nice car maybe? Computer? TV?

I personally barely watch TV, and I only go on the computer to play this, so I would say no. I'm 15 so couldn't tell you on the car issue, but from my interactions with family members and older friends, its important to younger people, but as you become older it loses its charm somewhat. I'm a huge lover of food, so I would include food in my ideal life, but I live in a pretty cramped house thats full of shit, and I'm happy with it, so it depends on the person. I wouldn't say material wealth is necessary for a good life, but some people put more value on it than others.

@TiresiasBC - Holocaust survivor wasn't needed in describing him :P Also, great book. His concept of logotherapy in terms of being the only way to find happiness is one in which I agree but a lot of his other ideals I find meaningless.

The good life is a good attitude. It's achieving goals, which is 99% mental. The good life is realizing that your happiness is purely in your own hands, and then being happy as a result. The good life is finding the good thing in everything. The good life is thinking things through, and being confident. It's about appreciation of the good things, like cathartic release, like love, beauty, food or sex, (or even the nice feeling you get when you piss). And if those became miserable to you, it's about finding the good things that have taken their place.

The good life is complete subjective.

And yet it is not.

You can be a happy, honest construction worker with no knowledge of the greater world, or a great king with enormous impact but a corrupt conscience and no sense of ethics.

Both cases are successes.

And obth are not.

Ultimately, there IS no "good" life, because "good" and "bad" are not at all real and applicable terms in the grander scheme of things. Beyond them, beyond what we might call the good or bad life, are the true rewards and pitfalls- which may only be accessed if you erase your present conception of good and bad and right and wrong and morality and evil.

Beyond those paltry ideals are truths that are at this moment beyond human understanding, and it is the greatest triumph to achieve those truths, to become a mightier man. There are many roads towards that goal, all shrouded, but all available.

None would've believed or concieved that path Shakespeare took, from mildly educated man to decent actor to the greatest author in history- he carved his own path, and that path led him to a "good" far greater than man has, in literature, achieved before or since as of yet.

On the flip side of that, none would have taken the path of Adolf Hitler, from ignomonious boy and mild soldier to failed painter to failed revolutionary to finally the must unlikely and arguably the costliest and (I shall lapse into human and unrefined human understanding, as a greater comprehension of the tragedy is not yet available to me) evilest man in history.

The only life worth living is doing whatever you want and not caring for the grandiose.
That is also the meagerest, weakest life possible.
The only life worth living is one where you attempt to blaze the trail from modern man to man's glorious and mentally evolved future self.
That is also the life that can, so often, lead to little fulfillment, or fulfillment of the sort you shall not desire.

Thus the good life is subjective, totally up to you.
And it is on one path, the path to greater glory, the path that leads to all the undiscovered countries of existence not yet explored, and thus you have no choice which way to go if you will yourself to have a good life- rigidly foward at an alarming and painful pace is the only way.


Not that I have any opinion at all on this... ;)

subjectivism was awesome but then I turned twelve years old

and learned that stuff that is difficult to figure out is not therefore impossible to figure out; it just takes an intense application of the intellect to figure out

foggy epistemology is boring, childish bull

no obi is right, it's just that, if you're not nuts, being an optimist, the right kind of optimist, makes you happy on the whole

And dismissing an idea, a rather large and often-argued philosophical idea at that, offhand with no alternative is also rather childish.

Acomist, if I and my ideas are SO off-line and you were able to dismiss them SO easily (with so much as even a real and thorough examination and refutation... must be easy to jsut say things aren't true and have that be the case) then perhpas YOU would like to enlighten us all with the secret of life you must hold.

And thanks for the defense, Thucidides- but that wasn't what I meant at all :)

Non-contradiction > gassy nonsense "arguments" more fit for an after-school special than serious discussion

I know you think your touchy-feely philosophy is worth something, but it just isn't. Perhaps the rhetorical onus is on you to prove that non-contradiction doesn't work here, and that philosophers from Aristotle to the present day are wrong in thinking that The Good exists (rather than doesn't exist, but maybe does; who knows or cares, as long as you feel well). I don't really care. I'm not here for affirmation of your hilariously vacuous philosophy of life.

Gnothi seauton.

Nice job of projecting - you just claimed a bunch of airy nonsense, and we were supposed to accept it. But man, when someone turns the tables on you, it's not kosher anymore!

Anyway, where to start? I mean, for your education. I guess Nicomachean Ethics would be a good place, right? Because it involves an extended argument about what the good is and how it can be obtained. It does not, because it would be insane, assume that the good does not exist or that it can be created and destroyed at will by a person whose mind is equally disposed toward everything at once.

I think there has been a GROSS misinterpretation of what I am trying to say- and who I'm drawing from.

I am NOT saying just be happy, or any of that.
I am NOT saying that's the way to the "good" life.

I use that to say that there is no "set" good life, as everyone is different-

And if you want to argue THAT Acomist, and tell me everyone is exactly the same in every respect and should be judged as such, then I'd love to hear your explanation.


I am saying that, for the record, that the best idea for mankind ON THE WHOLE and the best life for men IN GENERAL is to strive towards the betterment of the self and humnaity itself.

Again, Shakespeare, or Einstein or Goethe- great in ONE area, ONE area (and they likely were great in more than one respect, bur you all know my intended statement here, so let's not split hairs) and they furthered man in that area.

Where are we in understanding literature and the literate soul of man without the enormity of the impact of Shakespeare? Such a thing can, and should be said of most any author deemed to be influential, but few, very few (though I have a feeling Acomist my be one of those few) would disagree Shakespeare, man (I believe he is one man) or a collection of many men, is the most important, read, beloved, and imfluential writer of all-time, certainly in the West.

And in that- I do not include the Bible, that's a whole different beast, let's not go there...


So my point? I think that it is the best life for MOST men to strive towards the evolution of humanity itself, as Shakespeare did with literature. And, the end result of all this, what man is really living a "good" life for- the next stage of man, the new, mentally eveolved man that crawls from the ofice of such a life and finds himself superior, mentally, "morally" (if you believe in such a thing) and psychologically superior to man today and all men prior.

I am notr original in this thought.

I do not draw from the after-school special or the comic books.

I draw from Friedrich Nietzsche and his concept of the Ubermensch (translates to "Superman" or "Overman.")

So, to tie up a few other loose ends:

-THAT is my position

-Anyone who tries to make a Hitler/master race argument is ignorant... PLEASE don't waste our time making clarifications that are obvious and have been uttered so many times it is just ridiculous to have to do it again

-For the record, Acomist, PLENTY of philosophers over the ages have argued against the existence of a monolitic good that is always good, and some, like Nietzsche in his book "Beyond Good and Evil" and Sartre after him, would argue that there is no reall "good" or "evil" as we know it

Hav at it, then...

There is a difference between characterizing an experience as subjective, and endorsing the general philosophy of subjectivism. I think that obiwanobiwan's statement "the good life is subjective" falls into the former category and not the latter. Now if obiwanobiwan was to argue the value of pi was subjective, or that there is no such thing as an objective real world, then you might have grounds to say, "well I think the philosophical doctrine of subjectivism is flawed, and this is why.... etc". I didn't read that obi's post at all, and I certainly didn't see you actually make a proper case against the notion of subjecitivism either. You cited some jargon, and an argument that does not make.

sorry my post was addressed to Acosmist.

Leading the good life is about perspective. I will give a real example, I have a friend that was in a bad mood after a days golf. He had snapped his club around a tree (on purpose) after his ball, which was heading for the green, hit a twig high up in the branches. I asked why he would get so upset by this and he barked that it just summed his life up he was sooooo unlucky.

So this 40 year old man is unlucky, let us examine that.

(a) he was born in England which in itself is like winning life's lottery.
(b) he spent a week day playing golf when most of the world was working
(c) he had reached his mid 40s when the life expectancy in some countries is 37.
(d) he was born a man with all the unfair advantages that entails,
(e) he has no health problems (apart from perhaps depression)
(f) he has close friends and family
(g) he owes more than one house
(h) he drives nice cars, having previously owned porshes and ferraris
(i) he has had several loves in his life
(j) he has a child
(k) he spends around 6 months a year travelling to Thailand, Dubai, etc
(l) he is born in a time when we have the internet, can fly around the world, live in a democracy, have conquered many health problems and have freeview TV
(m) I could go on on and on, but you get the point

The thing is he, and all of us, are living the good life, we just don't realise it.

I really regrey using that word... subjective...

ALL I mean by that is that life is not black and white, what works for one will not worf for all, and thus when EVEALUATING whether or not your or any other life is or was "good" the judgement is entirely subjective- your opinion on yourself, or your opinion on others."

I realize I phrased that a bit badly, sorry... my view on what the ultimate, "best" life is lies within my second stated argument, that's what I tried to get at the first time, and obviously had some issues stating it properly.

So, for the record, in this discussion, I am, again, of the opinion:

the pursuit of self betterment and the betterment of humanity on the road to the evolution of Nietzsche's
Ubermensch or a similar such form of man is the "best" life and the goal towards which one should strive- HOW to get there or WHAT one must do to better one's self or humanity is a subjective choice by the self (my being subjective and saying that I think the way I can best better myself and humanity is by writing on par with Shakespeare and exploring ideas he never did, thus giving humanity new insights eloquently phrased) or the whole of humanity as a whole (future generations may say "Yes, he did advance human understanding of itself, where would we be without him!" or "No, he really was just a hack out to make money and voiced no original opinion, he did not at all further our understanding of ourselves."

There- how is that, hopefully clearer...

I don't regret using the term subjective - and here's why.

I consider my life to be ideal and there are others that would say it is not the "good life" because they feel it's missing something (i.e. more money, more power, more of something or less of something). If it's not subjective or perception, than I'm not sure how to define it, as I recall no diffy-q equations that can do so. This is an area where I will agree w/ Acosmist though, as neither she nor I care what another single person feels on this matter:) It doesn't change my feelings of contentedness one tiny iota.

I think the term subjective, if it was to be applied to anything, would be appropriate to describe the "good life". I would be interested to hear from Acosmist a reason that it should not be, other than some nonsensical siting of some philosophical jargon, for which I doubt he has any genuine understanding. That might sound a little harsh, but until he makes a proper case in plain English, I have to say he has come across as a tad pretentious and lacking in substance. If he can, on the other hand, I will admit, I would find this genuinely insightful.

I believe Acosmist is a she:P

But I do agree w/ the points you stated.

"The Good Life" isn't necessarily living a life others deam "good" obiwanobiwan. Mozart died young (likely from typhoid) and was buried a pauper. Yet he is arguably one of the most influential composers in the history of classical music. Highly prolific, he has inspired countless composers since. There is no arguing that he advanced the caude of humanity musically/artistically, but did he lead "The Good Life"? I would argue that if you were able to ask him you might be surprised at his answer, but that his accomplishments and influence were probably not a factor in his decision as to whther he lead it. He enjoyed wine, women, and song. Maybe he would say yes. He died young and railed against the leadership of the day because his music wouldn't let him conform to what htey expected, so he might say no. But he wouldnt' say he lead the good life because his work was a positive force in the world.

i really need to learn to quit letting the lack of love in my life bother me.

@Sayjo the Lion-Hearted: Yeah, I rewrote that comment half a dozen times trying to be terse. The first draft mentioned that it was based on his experience in a concentration camp, but when I decided that was superfluous, I failed to delete it completely. My bad. :P

Good life isn't documented often because it's not worthy of publicity. Happiness is always the same while crises are different.

A good life is what a man makes of it, makes most of and enjoys doing. It is one where he is to take consequences, accept this and continue to be happy.

It is too late in the night for me to philosophize....