[HN Gopher] Good genes are nice, but joy is better
___________________________________________________________________
Good genes are nice, but joy is better
Author : teleforce
Score : 172 points
Date : 2022-04-24 06:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (news.harvard.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.harvard.edu)
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I've always believed that Democritus(the laughing philosopher)
| was onto something with his work "On Cheerfulness" that inspired
| many stoics like Seneca to pass on the idea of enlightened
| hedonism.
|
| While loneliness is a factor that is getting worse each year and
| the stats seem to also prove it, I do believe that the idea
| Democritus provides for "moderation of everything" is the key.
| This sense of relatedness and having a strong sense of
| community/relationships still needs to not fall to either
| extreme.
|
| Seneca for example outlined a few things on-top of this work in
| "On the tranquility of the mind / on peace of mind" for living a
| good life:
|
| 1. Attitude is everything.
|
| 2. Don't compare yourself to others, only yourself.
|
| 3. Love and be loved.
|
| 4. Do not harm others.
|
| 5. Cherish the present.
|
| That the right treatment is to follow nature, find the right
| balance between sociability and solitude, labour and leisure,
| sobriety and intoxication, and to "watch over our vacillating
| mind with intense and unremitting care".
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democritus/
|
| https://medium.com/@s.sekulins/a-guide-to-happiness-senecas-...
| chrisweekly wrote:
| +1 Insightful
|
| But your opening sentence would be much more effective with a
| bit of rewording; "inspired many stoics like Seneca to pass on
| the idea" is hard to parse, and fatally ambiguous. Did Seneca
| "pass [the idea] on" (ie, propogate / endorse it), or did he
| "[take a] pass on it" (ie, reject it). Later context makes it
| clear you meant the former. Anyway thanks for the links, HTH!
| tester756 wrote:
| >2. Don't compare yourself to others, only yourself.
|
| Can "stealing"/learning from other people be considered as a
| "comparing" to them?
|
| Because before you apply their approach, then you have to
|
| a) find that they're doing it
|
| b) realize that you aren't
|
| Thus you kinda indirectly compared yourself to them
| rowanG077 wrote:
| No? I'm not sure what drove you towards that question.
| Stealing and comparing are unrelated I'd say.
| tester756 wrote:
| I reworded it, should be better now
| gffrd wrote:
| I read the OP's "compare" as the judgement-filled comparison,
| where one measures their self-worth based on where others are
| at relative to themselves / relies on external yardsticks for
| definition of identity.
|
| The compare you're talking about--seeking excellent people
| (internally defined) and wanting to learn from them (without
| judgement)--is an extremely important thing.
| bena wrote:
| I think it's more along the lines of material goods or things
| like "success" or what have you.
|
| It's an adage that's been repeated over and over in many
| ways: "Comparison is the thief of joy".
|
| For some people, it's not enough that they have something
| good, they must have something better than someone else.
| "What good is my iPhone 12 if you have an iPhone 13? Why
| don't I have an iPhone 13?" And so on.
|
| But. Last year, they didn't even have a phone. So they're
| better off, yeah?
| smm11 wrote:
| There was some study that looked at this isolated community that
| did not have the greatest diet, yet they lived very long lives
| and disease was nearly non-existent. What they had was community.
| jacinda wrote:
| I think you may be referring to the Roseto effect.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseto_effect
|
| This community had unusually low rates of heart disease despite
| a large range of traditional risk factors. The general
| consensus was that this was due to the community-oriented
| nature of the town. Later they did follow-ups and found that as
| the town became more stereotypically "American" the mortality
| rates due to heart disease increased, especially among younger
| men.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1695733/
| [deleted]
| waterhouse wrote:
| Comments:
|
| 1. To the title: I'm confident there are good genes that cause
| joy. I'm _certain_ there are bad genes that cause anti-joy.
|
| 2. The actual article talks about relationships with people, and
| not about happiness per se. (For example, what about a hermit who
| constantly derives joy from listening to classical music?) Bad
| title.
|
| 3. Most of what is stated is a correlation, and it seems there
| are obvious alternative explanations, such as the opposite-
| direction causality: if your health problems get bad enough, that
| may interfere with your relationships. For example: "Part of a
| study found that people who had happy marriages in their 80s
| reported that their moods didn't suffer even on the days when
| they had more physical pain. Those who had unhappy marriages felt
| both more emotional and physical pain." Maybe those who feel
| worse physical pain are more likely to snap at their spouse,
| and/or less likely to do the things that make their spouse feel
| loved.
|
| I mean, it's _plausible_ that the thesis is correct, but the
| article seems to overstate the certainty of the evidence.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > For example, what about a hermit who constantly derives joy
| from listening to classical music?
|
| Something you just cooked up out of your imagination is not a
| real counter-example
| musicale wrote:
| A plausible hypothetical counterexample is sufficient in this
| case to demonstrate logical incompleteness.
| waterhouse wrote:
| Fine, how about someone who has little or no social life but
| derives joy from playing video games and other solitary
| pursuits, and also gets enough exercise (or at least as much
| as the average person who has good relationships)? I suspect
| there are some people on this forum who are like that, and
| more people who might become that if they thought it was the
| right idea.
|
| Edit: The point is that the title implies that you'd get the
| significant health benefits just by experiencing joy, but the
| article says that you need good social relationships, so, if
| we believed the article, the title would misdirect people.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Do you have a long term longitudinal study of many
| individuals backing up your claims, like this study does
| for claims about the importance of relationships to long
| term health?
| waterhouse wrote:
| What claims am I making? The article is the one that's
| claiming causation. I've merely said that its evidence is
| insufficient, and also that the title misstates the
| claims made in the article. The point of mentioning
| "those who get solitary joy with no social life" is that
| the title says this is good, but the article says it's
| not good--and therefore, even if we believed the
| conclusions the article tries to draw, the title gives
| bad advice.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Social needs vary among people. It's easy to see the
| benefits of good social relationships. However, I think
| people with lower social needs, smaller to non-existent
| social relationships aren't suffering.
| abirch wrote:
| Most of my gamer friends, game with real people. Not sure
| if there are statistics on this or not.
|
| For what it's worth this is a correlation study and not
| causal. I'm sure there are some loners out there that are
| very happy, but when I've had turbulent times in my life,
| it was my friends who helped me.
| erdos4d wrote:
| You've never met my uncle I see.
| fionaellie wrote:
| Even more obvious: Good relationships provide for a higher
| level of care and support. When health trouble arises, a
| devoted partner's presence (to identify issues and encourage
| action), care (when self-care isn't possible), and advocacy
| (within our challenging healthcare system) can make all the
| difference in the world.
| giantg2 wrote:
| On number 1, there seems to be some evidence that people with
| higher IQs are less likely to be happy.
| waterhouse wrote:
| There is reason to expect that with today's educational
| practices; the effect, funnily enough, does manifest partly
| through social relationships:
| https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf
|
| > A 20-year longitudinal study has traced the academic,
| social, and emotional development of 60 young Australians
| with IQs of 160 and above. Significant differences have been
| noted in the young people's educational status and direction,
| life satisfaction, social relationships, and self-esteem as a
| function of the degree of academic acceleration their schools
| permitted them in childhood and adolescence.
|
| > The considerable majority of young people who have been
| radically accelerated [skipped 3+ years of K-12], or who
| accelerated by 2 years, report high degrees of life
| satisfaction, have taken research degrees at leading
| universities, have professional careers, and report
| facilitative social and love relationships. Young people of
| equal abilities who accelerated by only 1 year or who have
| not been permitted acceleration have tended to enter less
| academically rigorous college courses, report lower levels of
| life satisfaction, and in many cases, experience significant
| difficulties with socialization.
|
| > I believe that all the young people in this study would
| have benefited greatly, both academically and socially, from
| grade advancement, while the considerable majority would have
| benefited from radical acceleration. Sadly, only 17 were
| radically accelerated, and indeed, the majority (33 of the
| 60) were retained with age peers for the duration of their
| schooling.
|
| > Several of the nonaccelerands have serious and ongoing
| problems with social relationships. These young people find
| it very difficult to sustain friendships because having been,
| to a large extent, socially isolated at school, they have had
| much less practice in their formative years in developing and
| maintaining social relationships. Six have had counseling. Of
| these, two have been treated for severe depression.
| AlanYx wrote:
| That's a fascinating paper -- thanks for sharing it.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Yes, it is blindingly obvious that people are born with
| different happiness set-points, and this is primarily genetic,
| if you look at families.
|
| Circumstances and life adjust this up and down... but some
| people are just innately happy and other people are innately
| unhappy, and adjust to their set-point quickly after a life
| change.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| There's plenty of research about events (e.g. unemployment or
| bereavement) affecting people's happiness long-term if you
| care to look
| dymk wrote:
| There's plenty of research counter to that, showing that
| regardless of negative or positive events happening in
| one's life, people tend back towards the same happiness
| they were at after a few years.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| I wouldn't say it "counters" it, rather it very much
| depends on the events and/or circumstances. Winning the
| lottery won't make you happy. Losing your job and failing
| to get another one will probably make you sad. Traumatic
| events can be very hard to get over.
|
| Funny enough the only example I've found of an "event"
| having a long term _positive_ effect is cosmetic surgery
| oneoff786 wrote:
| So if you see a person unhappy in poverty it's because of
| their genetics?
| anshorei wrote:
| I think he means the inverse: for people able to find joy
| despite adverse circumstances.
|
| More importantly, I would say, it's likely innate to us
| that we are unhappy without adverse circumstances. I.e. for
| there to be brightness there needs to be darkness.
| showerst wrote:
| Are we sure that is "blindingly obvious"? I think the whole
| point of studies like this to try to tease out hints at what
| parts of it are genetic vs circumstance vs choices.
|
| FWIW I think that the genetic component of 'innately happy'
| is quite small, as I've known relatively few dirt poor people
| who were happy anyway, and relatively more carefree upper
| class folks. Though of course it's possible it's still
| genetic and just caused economic sorting higher up the tree,
| I suppose.
| Epiphany21 wrote:
| >Some participants went on to become successful businessmen,
| doctors, lawyers, and others ended up as schizophrenics or
| alcoholics, but not on inevitable tracks.
|
| Why was this assumption made? If the goal of the study is to
| analyze the potential for biologically determined outcomes in
| people's lives, doesn't this sort of undermine that foundational
| question? Why wouldn't genetics play a role in determining
| personality, and make some people more outgoing and willing to
| embrace a community?
|
| >Researchers who have pored through data, including vast medical
| records and hundreds of in-person interviews and questionnaires,
| found a strong correlation between men's flourishing lives and
| their relationships with family, friends, and community.
|
| This doesn't tell us why. Why is that the case?
|
| >Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your
| relationships is a form of self-care too.
|
| Taking care of your relationships IS taking care of your body.
| Our mind is a physical organ like the heart or lungs. Our entire
| personalities, our thoughts, our dreams and everything that
| comprises consciousness is just a series of abstractions built on
| top of flesh.
|
| IMO, the real lesson these researchers should've taken away from
| this is that the mind is not separate from the rest of the body.
| acheron wrote:
| "I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
|
| "And are you?"
|
| "No. That's where it all falls down of course."
| giantg2 wrote:
| "The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy
| we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our
| health,"
|
| Well I'm screwed. I don't take care of my body either.
| citrus1330 wrote:
| There's still time to change that.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I am reminded of an Achewood comic [1] about a Harvard study
| regarding love: "So maybe the next time you Harvard guys decide
| to study some Harvard guys ... just remember that for most folks
| the Maslow hierarchy tops out at lookin' in the bathroom mirror
| without drawin' an X in the steam."
|
| 1: http://achewood.com/index.php?date=04152016
| mynameishere wrote:
| Apropos of nothing except the comment I am responding to, I
| just idly clicked the next comic and completely forgot that I
| had read it already, until the last immortal line: "I wonder
| where it will be when it dies." It's weird that Charles Schulz
| had like 800 billion dollars and Chris Onstad is working in a
| greasy spoon or something.
| revskill wrote:
| More concretely, to me, the most important thing in a
| relationship is trust.
|
| Trust is like Rome, we can't simply build it in 1 day, or simply
| buy it.
|
| Trust is nessessary condition for any long term relationship.
| ilamont wrote:
| I wish they would include these types of studies in Harvard's
| curriculum and community life, where there is an outsized
| emphasis on pedigree, test scores, and unlocking career
| achievements.
|
| There used to a dating website that advertised heavily on Boston-
| area public radio stations called "GoodGenes" that specifically
| restricted participation to Ivy League graduates. Facebook
| followed a similar pattern (at first) limiting participation to
| elite schools.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Remember when Harvard was considered to be intellectually
| peerless. Yeah, the only thing going for it is its endowment.
| Like others growing up, I assumed that Harvard was only for the
| best and the brightest in the world. If you applied for Harvard
| and didn't get in, this is what you're missing. Even the most
| prestigious of institutions are not immune to the replication
| crisis and hand-waving research overall.
|
| Just another attempt to downplay the roles of money, social
| status as it pertains to happiness. I am sure someone who is
| smart, wealthy and has high social status, like Bezos or Musk, is
| happier than the average person of their age group who has
| neither. Being happy at 80 or 90 does not matter. I want to be
| happy now. For for most people, that means having money and
| professional/career status and success. Yeah, the midlife crisis
| is a real thing, but for unsuccessful people who make no money,
| life is a daily crisis if you're poor.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Why are you drawing all kinds of conclusions regarding Harvard
| the institution based on you disliking this study?
| paulpauper wrote:
| cause it's their study?
| cinntaile wrote:
| You suppose a lot of things in your reasoning that you
| don't back up with any data or references and then you use
| this to discredit the institution based on a popular
| science article. It doesn't really make much sense.
| dash2 wrote:
| I get so tired of seeing the same research pretending that
| causation is correlation. At some point I just don't want to trot
| out the same old comment. Maybe we should just accept that whole
| swathes of social science have given up on taking causality
| seriously.
| abirch wrote:
| I was hoping the answer was arguing with strangers on the
| internet. That's what I seem to do and was hoping that was the
| answer.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Those ties protect people from life's discontents, help to delay
| mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long
| and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes._
|
| If you have good relationships, you have people taking care of
| you in important ways probably every single day, whether you
| interact with them that day or not. Over time, this adds up.
|
| If you don't have that, the cost may be invisible but will
| inevitably add up over time.
| moonshinefe wrote:
| Makes sense. The people I've seen with problem relationships have
| more emotional issues and that's often when things like drug use
| and bad decisions go hand in hand.
|
| The good news is I have a wonderful wife who I get along with
| really well. However, the further into my 30s I go the fewer
| friends I seem to have. Moving to a new country and the pandemic
| definitely didn't help. Where do people approaching middle age
| meet friends these days? Everyone always seems to in their own
| bubble and wants to fight about politics or other wedge issues
| instead of just chilling for lack of a better word.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >wants to fight about politics or other wedge issues
|
| It's always so funny that this is brought up on HN as a reason
| for lack of socialization or problem so often. One of the
| biggest and most durable parts of my social life is being a
| member of a political party, which I have been in since I was
| 16 years old.
|
| Being involved in civic/political life means you have
| connections with people from all walks of life across all
| generations and backgrounds. just wanting to chill is the
| actual problem because I don't think these suburban soccermom
| type social circles sustain _meaningful_ relationships.
| Participating in public life is the most straightforward way to
| build social relationships that matter.
|
| There was another great post here a few weeks ago from someone
| explaining why he continues to serve in the British Yeomanry.
| https://chrisseaton.com/army/
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Right. It seems a bit odd that our goal in friendships is
| often to find someone who will "just sit and chill." If you
| want any diversity in your friendships, they'll likely need
| to be made "shoulder to shoulder," ie when working toward a
| common cause.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Agreed, and it also seems to me that most adults, at least
| the ones leading something like meaningful lives, don't
| have a lot of time to "just sit and chill." When my kids
| were young I rarely did, there was always something going
| on. Now that they are older and out of the house, I have
| more time for myself but I'm using that time, not just
| sitting around (mostly not, anyway).
| holoduke wrote:
| Similar story for me. It changed once i moved out of the city
| with kids to a residential area. Since then 3 years have passed
| and the quality of my social life increased dramatically. Of
| course this didn't just came around. I did put a lot of effort
| in getting new friends. But it's certainly easier in an
| environment where people live similar lifes.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > Where do people approaching middle age meet friends these
| days?
|
| For me it was parents of my kids' friends, often via sports or
| other group activities that the kids were all involved in.
|
| Those friendships fade quickly once the kids grow up, by the
| way, as there is no longer the common connection. I've made
| some attempts to maintain these, but they generally are not
| reciprocated and at some point you just stop with the one-sided
| effort.
|
| I have not discovered the secret to long-lasting friendships,
| if there is one. They all seem to rely on common proximity
| (school, work, gym, etc.) and they don't really hold up if and
| when those things change. I have not had any friendships that
| ever lasted very long past graduations, job changes, moves,
| retirements, etc. I think that's basically natural, and that
| friendships really depend on some outside set of factors that
| keep people coming together for the same things.
| moonshinefe wrote:
| Thanks for the response. That's been kind of my experience
| too (hard to keep them when not close / with something in
| common). I suppose I'll need to find a new hobby at some
| point here and meet people that way.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I'm not surprised. I'm reaching an age where I feel like I've
| seen it all in terms of what can happen to me as a person
| (births/deaths/big life events), as well as what can happen in
| terms of historical events that affect people's lives (Changes of
| leadership, wars, stuff in the news).
|
| But the thing that seems most important is relationships. Being
| able to maintain them with various people is paramount. I'm a bit
| younger than the people in the study, and fortunate to have a
| very international network, so maybe I rely more on technology to
| talk to people, but I've found it's key to write to people to
| stay in touch. In terms of day-to-day I also make an effort to do
| a gathering now and again. It's pretty easy, I just ping some
| people I know from various contexts and pick a place. Also in
| terms of close relations I don't find you need to be close in
| terms of frequent contact. Writing to someone I've known for a
| long time without constantly connection is as familiar as having
| the occasional meal with local friends.
|
| I've also developed a kind of understanding for various
| relationships that are a kind of "kindred spirit" relation:
| people who exemplify some sort of archetype with whom I identify,
| but with whom I have not spent much time. It's a sort of
| immediate familiarity that is quite satisfying, eg when you meet
| another programmer and you have similar experiences, or another
| person who went to your university or comes from the same
| country. These are often useful seeds for deeper relationships,
| but are also good in and of themselves.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| I'm definitely not in the "seen it all" phase but I recently,
| on a whim, got out a pen and paper and started what I thought
| would be a quick one page letter. 8 pages later I realized the
| act of writing was as important as the content itself. And the
| receiving side seems to have shared the sentiment; the
| interaction, slow and async as it was, had a depth of meaning I
| wouldn't have anticipated. Kinda hippie dippie and all but true
| nonetheless. :)
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Relationships are important, but this importance varies from
| person to person. What would break one (long absence of such)
| is a negligible detail for another. Its true that most folks
| are wired for some form of them, but some actually thrive in
| their absence and focus their energy easier towards their
| goals.
|
| I personally am somewhere in between. I can handle loneliness
| remarkably well, way better than most if not all people I know
| closely (and this allowed me to do hard very positive actions
| in life), but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying occasional
| family or friends reunion. But I don't thrive on them and I am
| not sad/depressed when lacking them. I love my family just to
| be clear and especially my parents, very little to complain
| about.
|
| For example serious adventures can fill this hole more than
| nicely. But now my kids are doing their best and the hole is
| overflowing a bit.
| jimbokun wrote:
| This sounds like your personal anecdotal experience at a
| specific stage in your life, whereas the study covered many
| people over a decades long time frame.
| JackFr wrote:
| Many wealthy, elite white men predominantly from the
| northeast United States. (Yes I know 40 years in they
| expanded the study to some local inner city subjects.)
| jimbokun wrote:
| Still, it's probably the best study of its kind ever
| performed.
|
| Will be interesting to see if there are differences for
| other demographics as they continue to expand the scope
| of the subjects. But will need to wait decades for those
| results.
| devy wrote:
| This article was published in April 11, 2017.
|
| Please add the year tag to the title.
|
| Professor Scott Galloway also mentioned about this study in his
| book "The Algebra of Happiness".
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMW6xgPgY4s
| kgeist wrote:
| The article implies causation, but I'm not sure in which
| direction it goes. I can imagine that someone who is chronically
| ill will have less energy to maintain relationships. In other
| words, if you are healthy, you are more likely to be active in
| life in general, including relationships.
| LB232323 wrote:
| It is really a revelation that love is what makes life
| meaningful?
|
| There is a sweet naivete to a study like this, it invites
| compassion.
|
| Analyzing happiness with this cold academic rigor is just absurd,
| it is like a depressed species of alien studying our planet to
| figure out why people have happy lives. "Is it genes?" the cold,
| analytical mind ponders. It is kind of funny, yet it is tragic,
| and so it invites a response.
|
| Yes, love makes life worth living. Not just relationships, but
| love, in its many varied forms. If you are reading this, I love
| you. To Ivy League scientists and their objects of study, I love
| you as well. You see, God is love, this is a simple truth found
| in scripture. Surround yourself in love at all times, and you
| will lead a life that is satisfying and resplendent in joy.
| tasuki wrote:
| You see, I don't believe in God at all. And I think religion is
| generally more harmful than helpful. And yet... while the study
| was kind of boring, and most of the comments here too, there is
| something in your comment that touched me very much. You put a
| smile on my face after another difficult day. Thank you.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| >You see, God is love, this is a simple truth found in
| scripture
|
| I have read my fair share of traditional religious scripture
| and I haven't concluded this at all from the text. I've found
| what they call "God" to be at times a very spiteful, cruel, and
| unloving entity. If this is what "love" means in these texts, I
| don't want to have anything to do with it.
| layer8 wrote:
| "Love" is not a singular concept, the word refers to a whole
| lot of different things, and it's also different from happiness
| and longevity (what the study measured). The article also
| doesn't mention meaningfulness. What you wrote therefore seems
| like a non sequitur.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| > God is love, this is a simple truth found in scripture
|
| I'm not sure which scripture you are talking about. If you are
| talking about the Abrahamic line of scripture, you can find
| anything you want, as Shakespeare famously said. Because you
| are apparently a good person, you focus on the positive aspects
| of the message, and that is great.
|
| But there are people who focus on different parts of the
| scripture, or interpret the same passages in a different way,
| that lead to injustice and suffering. The fact that there are
| so many religious denominations reading the same documents but
| coming to different understandings shows that this message is
| anything but simple.
|
| Famously, the Torah describes God's special relationship with
| his chosen people. Many people love to take excerpts from this
| as God's universal truths, but in fact these were only for the
| Jewish people. God had no problem commanding them to commit
| rape and genocide against out-groups. The claim that "God is
| love" is true only if you erase large parts of that document,
| or redefine "love" to be whatever God has commanded there.
| the_common_man wrote:
| > Yes, love makes life worth living. Not just relationships,
| but love, in its many varied forms. If you are reading this, I
| love you. To Ivy League scientists and their objects of study,
| I love you as well.
|
| Well, the point is, not all love is equal and some love is
| greater than others. At that point, it's up to you to
| prioritize accordingly since love requires energy and we all
| have finite energy.
| krisoft wrote:
| > It is really a revelation that love is what makes life
| meaningful?
|
| It does not intends to be a revelation. A study can prove what
| everyone always believed all along. People believe all kind of
| things, some are true some are false. A properly designed study
| shines a dispassionate light at facts in a way which can show
| if the common belief was false or not.
|
| > Analyzing happiness with this cold academic rigor is just
| absurd,
|
| You are entitled to think that. The history of humankind is
| full of people being dead sure of themselves while also being
| wrong. This is why it's worth to check our assumptions in a
| dispassionate way. Especially the things we are sure about.
|
| > it is like a depressed species of alien studying our planet
| to figure out why people have happy lives.
|
| That is your projection. One can be full of joy, happiness, and
| love while still applying logic and dispassionate reasoning to
| study a question.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > It is really a revelation that love is what makes life
| meaningful?
|
| Yes. The original researchers considered all kinds of things
| that might correlate to long term health and happiness. They
| did not consider quality of relationships as one of them.
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