Author’s Notes: “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong,” said Bertrand Russell. And I agree. Life is truth; beliefs are just fashions. What are written here are not even my beliefs. They are a collection of my “inspirations of the moment.” They are nothing more than an exercise in logical reasoning. There is, of course, passion in what I write. There is always passion. But there is no foolish, illogical emotion. You are welcomed to support or contradict any of my arguments. Remember that there is no such thing as a right or a wrong argument. An argument is either sound or unsound. That is all.
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On Loyalty
Most people consider loyalty a virtue. I won’t deny that loyalty is something desirable and admirable, but I think the concept of loyalty has been interpreted and understood differently by different people.
In my opinion, loyalty is a feeling, not a moral rule—which is a product of reasoning. You “feel” loyal, but you don’t “think” loyal. If loyalty is a feeling, then it is based on something concrete, not abstract. Therefore, the statement “I feel loyal to my country” is inconceivable. What is a country? It is made up of individuals. The individuals are concrete, but the country is an abstract idea, a definition, a name. How can you feel loyal to an idea? This sounds absurd to me. I might feel loyal to my neighbors, my co-workers, or my friends because I like them or because they are nice to me, but how can I feel loyal to my country, my company, or my school, which only exist in my mind?
One may say that this is hair-splitting and that it does not make any difference in reality how you define loyalty. However, I maintain that it does make a difference. In fact, your behaviors depend on your perception of things, and therefore your action is a result of your thought. If the latter is not set straight, how could the former come out right? For example, if you believe that you must be loyal to the company you work for, then you would stay with the company no matter what happens. You would forfeit all the good opportunities that come you way. You would stay even if you hate your job and the people around you. You would stay even if nobody wants to you there any more! This is what happens when you say you are loyal to an abstract idea. On the contrary, when you say that you feel loyal to the people you work with, then your loyalty is conditioning on these individuals and their behaviors.
I think it is easy for most people to see the absurdity of the idea of being loyal to an “abstract” company. However, it is much harder to tackle the “country” case. Few people dare to question the concept of patriotism. Nevertheless, I insist that, for a healthy mind, nothing should be unquestionably accepted. Having said that, let us take a look at patriotism, or the concept of being loyal to your country. First of all, how do you define an act of patriotism? Is it the act of waving a flag or wearing some national symbol on your shirt? This is shallow, profoundly shallow. Anyway, to get back to serious discussion, I think one of the most widely accepted patriotic acts is to die for one’s own country. Is this always desirable? I dare say not! Of course if you are a soldier at war, you have no choice. You have to do what you are paid for, and that’s fair game. However, just because you have to do something does not mean that it is the right thing to do. Your life is much more precious than any ideology in the world, including patriotism. You only sacrifice you life for a good cause, not for some blindly accepted idea. I do not denounce patriotism altogether, but my point is that it’s impossible to feel loyal to an abstract entity like “country.” Moreover, I also think that it’s humane and sincere to say that you are willing to die for individuals—friends, neighbors, or strangers—instead of a country.
In short, although I myself value loyalty, I would challenge anyone who speaks of loyalty in abstract terms. Those who do so are either insincere or don’t know what they are talking about.
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On Self-Love
Usually, talks about self-love arouse scorn from common people, who often think of self-love as selfishness. However, if one thinks about the matter, one cannot help but conclude that self-love is the most long lasting, if not only, love that exists. Many great thinkers have brought up this very subject. Nietzsche, the great German philosopher, said: “…to love oneself…is of all arts the subtlest, the most cunning, the ultimate, and the most patient. For whatever is his own is well concealed from the owner.” Oscar Wilde, the witty English writer, put it in a humorous way: “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
Now, before you start calling those people selfish, stop for a moment and think for yourself. Do you love yourself? I hope so. Those who do not love themselves are incapable of love, and those who say that they love others more than they love themselves don’t know what they are talking about. You may object to the last assertion by testifying that you love your children, or spouse, or parents, more than you love yourself. I won’t object to this. In fact, I completely agree that this is nothing unusual. Nevertheless, I still assert that you love yourself more than anything else in the world. Why? Because it’s self-love that makes you love others. You love someone because that person is part of you (your child, your parent, etc.) or has some qualities that you have or wish to have. Think about this. Think deeply and honestly about this. Then you will see what I mean. All loves stem from the love of self, and this is nothing to be ashamed of.
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On Equality of Men
“Men are created equal” is what most civilized people believe. I have no intention to debate this point. What I want to discuss is the confusion between equality of men and similarity of men. This may sound elementary, but most people commit this mistake quite often. Men may be equal, but they are definitely not the same! Mathematically speaking, seven minus four is equal to one plus two, but seven minus four is not the same as one plus two. The components are not the same, nor are the relations between the components. The point is: people are very different from one another, in physical make-up, in thought, and in behavior. Therefore, it is a fatal error to give them the same treatment.
To treat everyone using the same formula is not only insensitive, but also insulting. People are not machines. There is no formula for treating people. Even one person is not the same now as a few years ago. So how can two people be the same? If they are different, they should be treated differently. Note that different treatment is not the same as special treatment. The latter is favoritism. And favoritism is often distasteful. To treat people differently means to take the time and effort to find out what each individual likes and dislikes and treat him or her accordingly. For example, not everybody likes to be praised openly in public. If you are not sensitive about this, you may end up creating tension and embarrassment by singing your unsolicited praises of someone.
When I talk about treatment, I have in mind the logical, not emotional, part of our daily activities, in which fairness plays an important role. In other words, I’m thinking of treatment mainly in terms of business or casual dealings, where emotion of any kind is not desirable. On the other hand, in matters of emotion and affection, men are neither the same nor equal (to those who are involved, of course). I never want to have anything to do with people who say that they like everybody. To say that you like everybody is the same as saying that you like nobody. It is a slap in the face to hear someone say that he or she likes you, and then go on saying that he or she likes everybody. This means that you are being liked by default, not by any special qualities that you possess. Besides, only saints love everybody, and saints usually are not interesting!
Speaking of saints, in the New Testament, Jesus told his disciples a very interesting parable. Basically, the parable was about a landowner who, out of compassion, hired some unemployed people to work in his vineyard. Some people were hired in the morning, and some were hired very late in the afternoon. At the end of the day, the employer paid everybody one dollar for their day’s work. Seeing this, the morning people complained that it was not fair because they worked all day while some people worked for only one hour and got the same wage as they did. The employer then replied that they (the morning people) got what they had agreed upon. And it was within his right to give other people whatever he desired, since it was his money. I’m not going to go into the moral of the story, I just want to say this: even Jesus, the religious idol of many people, doesn’t treat people the same, nor does he cares about loving everybody equally. Interesting people discriminate in their affection as well as their treatment of others.
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On Criticism
The attitude that dominates today’s culture is: Don’t ever criticize. People often think of being critical as being negative. To tell the truth, I was surprised when I first heard of this. What is wrong with being critical? How can I see my faults sufficiently and clearly if no one point them out to me? As I read some popular psychology books, I began to pick up a general argument against criticism. Criticism, they say, is never desirable because it hurts and lowers people’s self-esteem. Now, let’s analyze the argument and see where it would lead us.
First of all, criticism usually hurts, but so do most other good things in life. For most people, going through college is painful, but it gets them good jobs. Getting a flu shot is sore, but it prevents one from getting a flu, and so on. The point is, just because something hurts does not automatically make it bad. As to self-esteem, I have to say that you alone are responsible for your self-esteem (isn’t the term self-explanatory?), and nobody else can lower or higher your self-esteem. Nevertheless, for highly dependent people who tend to blame others for their emotional problems, I maintain that not all criticism cause emotional damage.
Now, let’s ask ourselves a question: “Whom would we want to criticize?” Would you walk up to a man at a bus stop and tell him that he has a crazy hairdo? Or, if you own a restaurant, would you come to another restaurant owner in your area and tell her that she needs to improve her customer service? Not if you are sane. We, most of us, don’t criticize strangers or enemies. We criticize friends and the people we care about. Why? Because we love them and want to point out their weakness so that they can improve. So, why do we get offended when someone criticizes us? Well, it’s human nature to get defensive when we feel that we are under “attack.” As long as we know for sure that other person is helping, not attacking, us, we will be open to his or her critical comments. But how can people tell the difference between helping and attacking? This leads us to another important point. That is, criticism, if done in a high-trust environment, will construct instead of damage. That is, when people trust you, no matter what you say and how clumsily you say it, they will understand that you are trying to help, not attack.
I have to admit that building trust is neither fast nor easy. Nonetheless, it’s something worth doing if one values one’s relationship. I think the first rule in building a long-lasting, high-trust relationship is being honest and open, which is something unachievable by those who shy away from criticism and favor flattery. It seems like we are going in circle here. However, the point is, criticism hurts at first (that’s why we need to start out cautiously), but it helps build trust at the same time. When we have deposited enough funds in our “emotional bank account” (to borrow Stephen Covey’s terminology), criticism becomes enjoyable by all parties involved.
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On Political Correctness
Nowadays people seem to label everything and everyone. One can be a liberal, a conservative, a feminist, an environmentalist, and so on and so forth. People seem to be afraid that if they don’t give themselves a name, somebody else will, and this often means no good. Not that there is anything wrong with labeling, but why limiting yourself to one point of view? Once one gives oneself a name, one becomes limited and prejudiced.
Anyway, the topic that I want to discuss is the political correctness tendency that leads to the gender-neutral language. In school, we are taught not to use “he” but “he or she” when we want to express something in a singular third person. This sounds innocent enough. However, there are times when you can get quite clumsy and complicated in your sentences. I sometimes use “he or she,” “him or her,” “his or her,” and “himself or herself” all in one sentence, and there is nothing more clumsy and unaesthetic than that! The point of language is to express your thoughts and feelings so that you and others in your community can understand and enjoy. Written (and spoken) languages do not serve solely as a means to communicate—this can be done easily by a set of symbols (like computer languages). The language that we use in our daily life reflects our culture, art, and life itself. What this means is that language should be taken as a whole, not chopped down into pieces and analyzed like an object in a dissecting room. Having said that, I assert that the “he or she” way of saying things is quite disgusting, aesthetically speaking.
Now, some people recognize the clumsiness of saying “he or she” all the time, so they start to use “he” and “she” alternately. By doing this, they avoid being clumsy but start to become absurd! I wonder if they actually count how many “he’s” and “she’s” they use, and try to make them equal! This is missing the point. When we write something, we either try to get our points across (like in writing an essay) or try to express our feelings about certain things (like in writing a poem). The “he-and-she-alternating” style accomplishes neither. It makes the readers so distracted and annoyed that they neither see the main points nor enjoy the work. Those who write in this fashion makes writing a painful duty instead of a creative, enjoyable work of art. By trying to be politically correct they undermine the integrity of language and literature.
There are also people who take it to the extreme by using only terms that are gender-neutral. For example, they use “human” instead of “man,” “one” instead of “he,” and so on. However, this is very limited and awkward sometimes. If you want to be truly politically correct, you have to change the whole English dictionary to make it gender-neutral. You basically have to change all “man” to “human” or “person.” Good luck with that! To change from “chairman” to “chair” or “chairperson” seems fine (even though it’s a little awkward). Now, how would you change “craftsmanship”? Should it be “craftship”? or “craftshumanship”? or “craftspersonship”? Here we go from being absurd to being paranoid!
In the old days, when people used “he” as a singular third person, did anyone think that they meant the “male” only? I don’t think so. If you think that this old language was the cause of gender inequality, and by changing it you can attain equality, you are quite misguided. I’m willing to assume that the old language originated from the gender-bias (i.e. male-bias) mentality, but I don’t see how by changing the language you can change the mentality. This is a logical fallacy. I’m not saying that we should stick to using “he.” That’s irrelevant. All I want to say is that language evolves over time, but not in a calculated, systematic manner. Language is more of an art than a science. Precision is a virtue in science but a vice in art. Science discovers; art creates. Precision and consistency hinder creativity and imagination. In my opinion, language, as an art, should be left alone. It will evolve through the artists, the poets, and those who know and appreciate art and beauty. The social activists should focus their energy on practical social issues, such as making sure that the law protects all members of the society. There is no room in art and literature for political correctness.
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On Generosity
In my experience with people from many parts of the world, I’ve had the privilege of knowing all sorts of people with a wide range of virtues and vices. Usually, I’m not interested in other people’s affairs, and the fact that they are virtuous or vice is a matter of profound indifference to me. However, stingy people often get on my nerves, so I have to say something about them. There is nothing more offensive to my taste than a miser. In my opinion, no matter how bad you are, there is hope in you if you are generous. Stingy people are hopelessly vice because they are, for lack of a better word, “rotten to the core.”
Why, you may ask, are the misers so bad, since they don’t seem to do much harm? I’ll show you why. But first of all, let’s define a miser. Simply put, a miser is someone who wants more for less. That means ripping other people off. This is fundamentally wrong. Everything has a fair price. If you pay for something less than its value, someone else has to pay the difference, and that’s not fair. Now, I’m not talking about having a good deal on an on-sale item. This is mutual benefit. The sale-people want to sell their merchandise fast so they lower the price (they probably have been ripping you off all year long anyway!). On the other hand, the stingy people are those who want to get more at other people’s expense, and without the other’s consent or willingness. If you don’t want to spend money, then just stay home. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is to travel the world with your home lunch, or to go to a restaurant ordering the cheapest item on the menu and paying no tip, or to hog a huge stack of napkins out of a fast-food restaurant when you buy only a 99-cent hamburger. This shows a serious lack of taste and culture, and, more severely, an absence of a sense of justice.
There is a more cunning, and more despicable, kind of misers—the misers who “think big.” Those are the rich people who give to charity, but they do this as a way of “throwing in a small fish to get a big one.” They would give each big charity organization a few dollars, and say it’s the thought that count. I would say there is no thought, simply bad intention. They either donate because they don’t want to look bad or because they just want their names mentioned, which is good for other purposes. I would respect more those who are not giving at all because at least they don’t pretend to be “good.” The hypocrites are always annoying.
I may sound a bit critical, but I really think that stinginess leads to crime. If your core values are based on injustice and selfishness, how could you do anything right? If there were no law, the misers would rob to get things that they don’t want to pay for and would kill those who they think are going to get things from them. Moreover, one of a miser’s traits is “smallness.” That is, they are people who mind small things. Therefore, they are often picky and intolerant. In any case, misers are just dangerous because their constant craving and bargaining either annoy or bore you to death!
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On Matters of Principles
So many people talk moral nowadays, and so few mean or understand what they say. It’s easy to talk moral when you have a fat bank account and a big house. It’s easy to talk moral when you spend most of your time in an air-conditioned office playing with a computer and call that “work.” It’s easy to talk moral when your only serious danger is to be audited! I don’t think any of those people ever live, or witness, a life where hunger is the normal condition; a life where you can get beaten to death at any time for trivial offenses such as going to the beach on a weekday; a life where your integrity and characters are put on a severe test because the line between heaven and hell may lie in kissing some asses.
No, I’m not going to tell a real-life tragedy because I don’t like tragedies, real or unreal. I’m just tired of those preachers of morality who eat three square meals a day and say things they have never experienced. Have you ever wondered why people like Socrates, Jesus, the Buddha, and Lao Tzu spoke with great authority and have had such a great influence on the world, even years after their time? It’s because they lived the life they preached. What they preached might not be great or true to everybody, but the lives they lived were what made them highly respected. Actually, as far as I know, none of these people have ever tried to force their theories down someone’s throat. Socrates’ famous saying was “I know that I do not know.” All he did was, with his friends and followers, examining different issues, asking questions and trying to arrive at “the truth.” Jesus claimed: “those who have ears, let them hear”; he didn’t try to force anything on anybody. The Buddha used the analogy of a raft to describe his teaching. A raft is something one needs to cross the river (i.e. to attain enlightenment), but once one has reached the other side of the river, one wouldn’t want to carry the raft along and worship it. As to Lao Tzu, he said basically nothing. “Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. Close the mouth.” That was what he said. The “Tao Te Ching” is the only work that is attributable to him, and it was written as a gift to a friend, who asked him for something in writing. What do our preachers of morality of today have? Nothing except empty words. They preach things they read from books, and they don’t even do that well. To those people I just want to say one thing: If you don’t know what you are talking about, then shut up! The world is so full of disturbing noises that it doesn’t need your contribution. Besides, morality is to be lived, not taught.
Am I advocating an “everything goes” philosophy? Not in the least. I think the one important thing in life that is often ignored is “matters of principles.” All one needs in life is a set of valid principles, and everything should go well. You may think that this is an overly simplistic point of view. But do you know that most things are simple, and people complicate them with their fancy theories? Anyway, what kind of principles should one have? Any kind that one honestly feels comfortable with. I realize that this statement would raise some objections because it sounds dangerous. So, let’s walk through this carefully. First of all, let’s consider a few values that most of us share. Take, for example, fairness. I think most people value fairness, whether or not they practice it is a different issue. Most of us think that fairness is important because it benefits everybody. If, for example, your teacher treats you favorably, you might enjoy it at first. However, you will, if you think a little further, see that this would hurt you, and everybody else, in the end. If the teacher gives you special treatment today, he or she may do the same thing to a different student later on. This could go on and create imbalance and chaos; whereas if the teacher treats everybody fairly, then there would be less energy wasted. The same logic applies to other things such as lying, stealing, or killing. You see that this is just common sense, and it has been discussed many times. Almost nobody wants to have values that are built on quick sand. They want to have values that are solid. They want to have values that apply everywhere and work for everyone.
Now, once people have enough experience to form their set of values, they start to think of making those values their principles. That is, they make it a rule to stick to those values. For example, if you think keeping promises is important, you may make it your principle to always keep promises. Of course it’s not going to be the end of the world if you can’t keep your promise. That’s what exceptions are for, and exceptions make life interesting. On the other hand, you would make your life easy by having a set of principles. They are like your yardstick. They help you make decisions easily and appropriately so that you have a peace of mind. Let’s go back to the promise-keeping example. If you can’t keep your promise, you know that there are some reasons for that, and maybe you can’t help it. However, since you have your principle, you have some sort of measurement and don’t get confused or frustrated.
There is one thing I want to make clear. That is, whatever principle one comes up with, one should never use it to measure other people or impose it on them. That is why I don’t have much respect for the preachers of morality who assert their beliefs everywhere. Beliefs are like underwear. Yours might fit you well, but respectable people don’t go around showing their underwear and convincing everybody else to wear the same. If everybody minds his or her own business instead of messing someone else’s up, our world would be a better place to live in. I’m convinced that most people have their own judgment and values that fit their life. Nobody has the right to say that someone’s values are invalid.
But, what about children? They don’t have enough experience to form their own judgment. Now, I’m no expert in children breeding. However, I know a lot of children, and I was once a child myself (yeah, like it’s some enlightening revelation!). What I see over and over again is that a child behaves almost exactly like his or her parents. Children have the most wonderful ability to imitate, for better or for worse. That’s why most of the time one can easily know the parents by just looking at the child. If you live up to your principles, you wouldn’t have to worry about your child’s behaviors. I don’t sympathize with parents who blame society for their child’s problems. First of all, society is not responsible for your child’s ultimate well-being, because it didn’t bring him or her to the world. Secondly, a child’s first and foremost influence is his or her family. Children only turn to friends or strangers when they have nowhere to turn to. If you live in a way that your own child is afraid to talk to you when he or she is in trouble, then that’s your problem, not society’s.
In short, I’m convinced that teaching morality is completely unnecessary. If you have principles, no morality is needed. If you don’t have principles, then the morality you teach is empty and meaningless.
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On Self-Promotion
Everybody thinks he or she is the best, or among the best (in some way). If you don’t think that much about yourself, you are a very unhappy creature. However, as some wise writer said, “good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.” Most of the time it’s just common courtesy to refrain from promoting oneself in public. It’s the way of the cultivated.
Unfortunately, most people we have to deal with are full of themselves and don’t know how to conceal that. Everywhere I go, I see people brag about themselves or their families. If they have just a tiny bit of common sense, they would see that nobody cares whether or not they are the smartest people on Earth. Everybody has his or her business to care about. You only get people’s attention when you talk about their interest, not yours. I don’t know about others, but I think self-promoting people are the most disgusting creatures I’ve ever known. I still remember my first experience with this kind of people. When someone came up with some idea, I said that it was a good idea. Then he said that it was a great idea. This really pissed me off. For crying out loud, if you want to praise yourself, there are more subtle ways to do so than that! Moreover, if you are really good, people will notice. If you feel the need to promote yourself, you are not that good. That’s my simple logic.
I usually “punish” the self-promoters by giving them what they don’t want—“demote” them, or just ignore them. You may say that I’m being mean, but I say that I’m being fair. Why should I waste any more energy praising those who already praise themselves all the time? Besides, I only give praises to those who deserve them, and the self-promoters usually don’t deserve any. I mistrust people who give praises all the time to everybody, including themselves. Their praises are cheap. In the New Testament (okay, I only quote this for argument purposes), there was an interesting part when Jesus talked about humility and stuffs like that. Anyway, he told his listeners that when they went to an important party, they should sit themselves at a lower (humble) seat. So when the host came and invited them to a higher (important) seat, they would be honored. On the other hand, if they came and sat in a higher seat, and when the host came and asked them to move to a lower seat so that someone else could sit in it, they would be humiliated. This is really nothing profound, just common sense. Sometimes I wonder what has happened to civilization. We have become more barbarous than the people of more than two thousand years ago!
I’m told by many people, and written literatures, that I should promote myself if I want to succeed in this world. The rationale is that people are busy nowadays, so nobody recognizes you if you don’t “toot your horn.” I don’t buy this argument. If people are too busy to recognize me without my tugging at their sleeves, then why should I have anything to do with them? If I’m good, why should I be stuck with such bad people? Of course the question now is whether I’m really good or not. So, I think one should focus on being “good” instead of promoting oneself. I agree that when you are talking to perfect strangers who may play an important role in your future success—such as your prospective employers or business clients, you need to “sell” yourself a little bit. Other than that, promoting oneself is inexcusably disgusting!
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On Romance and Happiness
Romance and happiness are something very grand. They are things that most of us yearn for in life. From experience and observation, I assert that these two things exist, but never exist together. I’d like to make clear that I’m talking about romance and happiness in a very broad sense, not just limited to man-woman relationships.
I assume that everybody has some idea of what romance or happiness means—so I’m not going to do the tedious task of defining them. Having said that, I’d like to go right into examples. I once read a story about a train driver who, as part of his daily routine, drove by a house in which a woman and her child lived. Everyday they stood in front of their door and waved to him. The driver couldn’t see them clearly, but this lovely image aroused his imagination and burning desire to come visit his “friends.” So one day, on his day off, he came to that house and knocked on the door. A woman opened the door and asked him what he wanted. He explained. The woman didn’t seem to know or care about him. He went away broken-hearted. The lovely image in his head shattered. It saddened me when I read this story. But is it true that each of us has experienced similar things in our life? Our fantasies are always perfect, but reality never is. Fantasies are romantic, but only reality can make us happy. Perhaps this train-driver example doesn’t say much about happiness. Anyway, the point is, the driver found the image of someone waving to him very romantic. He then sought happiness by attempting actualize this image—to make this lovely image a reality. By doing so, he destroyed romance. If it turned out that he and the woman (and the child) became friends, they might be happy, but the romance has been gone forever.
We find in literature thousands of examples like the above. There is something awfully romantic about a lover who waits and waits for years for her lover to return from a war. Once they are reunited, there is nothing to talk about (yes, they are happy, but their story has no literary value). It’s also very romantic for someone to mourn the death of his lover for the rest of his life. He is the very symbol of romance, but he is also the very symbol of misery. If he instead moves on with his life and finds a new lover, he becomes the commonest of the common, and nobody would care to know about him. In fact, great literature is almost entirely made up of unhappy authors who write about unhappy events. The happy authors and their happy stories usually considered “cheap” by the literary elite.
My favorite example concerning romance and happiness comes from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. When Dorian Gray dumped his lover—an actress—because he discovered that what he loved was not the actress but the characters she played, she killed herself. When his friend, Lord Henry, told him the news, Dorian was shocked. However, after a few minutes, he felt terrible. He confessed to his friend that he didn’t feel as guilty as he should—which amazed him. He even thought that it was like “a wonderful ending to a wonderful play.” Lord Henry, a man who was gifted with words, explained: “Someone has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored me…have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them they go in at once for reminiscences…One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.” He went on to say that there is something “quite beautiful about her death. I am glad that I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of…romance, passion, and love.” To any morally normal person, those are terrible things to say or hear. However, one must admit that there is some truth in what Lord Henry said. Most people enjoy those kinds of tragedies in literature. They find them romantic.
I have made no value judgment so far, and I have no intention to do so. That is, I don’t intend to make any comments about what—romance or happiness—one should prefer. After all, preference is a matter of tastes. Some people prefer romance to happiness. They idealize things and live with their dreams and fantasies. Other people prefer happiness to romance. They go on with their life without worrying about perfection or beautiful dreams. For me, people’s preference is nothing to debate about. The only point I want to make is that one can’t have both romance and happiness. To say that one is happy and romantic is a contradiction in fundamental principles.