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The good life
There is a certain something to making a save which keeps your team in the game. Or finishing a book I was so engrossed in I did not want it to stop. Or watching a great game of sport. You know, that feeling of doing something or experiencing something that brings you joy, simple, unadulterated joy. In the darker times it is easy to forget those pleasures, or even why we care doing the things we do. Heck, I have to force my self from time to time to actually enjoy the things I do, otherwise it can seem I am simply moving on autopilot. In philosophy the concept of the good life, the dolce vida, is central to much discourse, and it is worth exploring that in the context of all the issues we are faced with in our own times.
For every kill I get in Destiny there is a programmer somewhere who has sweated buckets to get the coding right. Their good life has benefited from the money I spent on the game, and continue to spend on the game, a virtuous circle of my good life minutely helping someone else’s. This may seem like a random example, but it highlights how the things we do in life impact those around us. Pay it forward with a cup of coffee for a random homeless person who you will never meet; your empathy giving you a moment of please, the warm beverage helping the other person. All the things that go into making your own conception of what the good life is impact those around you. There is no one perfect way to live…
