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Eduardo asked:
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Which is the perfect lifestyle?
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============
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I think this is the wrong question. I think the question would be better as "What is the perfect lifestyle
for me?" If we agree that different people have different likes, preferences, values and commitments,
then no one lifestyle will suit all.
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But even my new version seems wrong to me. It assumes that we can rank lifestyles best to worst.
But if we agree (and I think there are good arguments that we must) that each person's likes,
preferences, values and commitments do not form a perfectly coherent whole (so that some
preferences are somewhat at odds with others — e.g. I want to be a sports star, and I want to travel
extensively while I'm young), then while we can say that some lifestyles are better for me than others,
we will come to a conclusion that, amongst the better ones, this lifestyle (training every day) is better
in this way (making me a sports star), while that lifestyle (setting off overseas on an open ticket) is
better in some other way (travelling), and there does not seem to be any way of saying that one is
absolutely better than the other.
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So now the question becomes, for me, "What would be a good lifestyle for me — one I would be
happy with?" And while asking other people is a perfectly good way to go about answering this, there
will not be a single answer for all of us, or even for me alone, and I will have to make my choice as
best I can amongst the alternatives. When I do, some possibilities open up and others close down. As
long as I end up happy, it doesn't matter that some of my preferences were never fully met.
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Tim Sprod
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