Game Over

I will preface this by saying that I am in a decidedly un-cheerful mood; quite pensive and gloomy, in fact. At least I am finally delivering on my idea of labeling my mood at the beginning of my writing.

I’m thinking about the great truism that life isn’t fair. Yes. There are winners and losers in the game of life. It’s just a truth of biology: scarcity of resources, competition, winners and losers. Certain individuals win the genetic (and life circumstance) lottery; others lose; most of us muddle our way through somewhere in the middle.

I am reminded of baboons here. They live in a hierarchy, in which some males rise to the top and gain access to the best resources. The lower-ranking males live under great stress, having less access to food, fewer mating partners, and the constant threat of being attacked by the dominant males. These weaker males’ brains have released so much cortisol (stress hormone) over the years that their brains become damaged in certain areas. For them, life is harsh, indeed.

That, of course, is just one example from non-human animals. I don’t think it’s terribly difficult to find parallels in human society, in which some individuals live under constant threat and stress, while others are quite comfortable. So, we have winners and losers in the material game.

Then there is the happiness game. Some individuals inherit a predisposition to be happier, which is also augmented by positive life circumstances. In that complex interaction of genetics and environment, these individuals come out on top. As a result, they are highly optimistic, and their cheerfulness spills out into many aspects of their lives; they have better marriages, they make more money, and they live longer than their pessimistic counterparts. Happiness begets positive outcomes, which causes more happiness. And it is an inversely downward spiral for pessimistic folks. Of course, I am oversimplifying here, using extreme examples for illustration.

Overall, I think it is hard to deny that good things are not evenly distributed. Life is not fair. Some people have all the luck. These truisms are true.

As with most things, I blame evolution. Evolution does not care about us. It does not want us to be happy. Maybe we will be happy; maybe we won’t. There is some degree of control we have over our happiness, but only some. Ultimately, we are just players in a game that we don’t completely understand.

I love the analogy of life as a game, and I rely on it quite often. The thing about a game is, it doesn’t really matter. People win and lose, but then it is over, and you know it was all pretend. So it is with life.

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December 31, 2009 at 5:04 pm

Sean Utt

If you view life as a game, you risk trivializing your role in your own life. The only meaning we can have is the meaning we make. The Universe is without intrinsic meaning. And so we have to fight to make and hold meaning in our lives if we are conscious. Many people lack consciousness. They are unaware of the nature of the world around them. They unconsciously filter everything through a collection of fairy tales, and automatically find their meaning there. Good for them. As long as they don’t cause trouble for everyone else by say, flying planes into buildings or invading a random country in retaliation.

The Universe is pointless and meaningless, but that doesn’t mean your life has to be. You get to define for yourself what the rules for your life are, and it doesn’t have to be trivial pursuit.

December 31, 2009 at 5:27 pm

Karstan

I would add one thing to this. Those of us who didn’t win the genetic/parental/social lottery can still CHOOSE to be happy. At any point in your life, you just decide to be happy, and your fortunes change. And all that good stuff rolls in.

December 31, 2009 at 7:19 pm

cheerfulnihilist

Yes, I agree, up to a point. I think some people have a lot more trouble “choosing” to be happy due to their brain structure. But I think we do have some free will here, just not completely.

December 31, 2009 at 8:58 pm

We can choose to attempt to be happy, but there is no guarantee of success. We are better off choosing not to participate in things that make us unhappy, and letting the mind’s natural tendency to seek neutral work to our advantage. See Dan Gilbert’s “Stumbling on Happiness”, available at the Multnomah County Library. Studies have shown that while negative thinking is correlated with becoming sick more often, and getting sicker when you are already sick, once you stop thinking negative thoughts, thinking positive thoughts has no additional benefit. The best we can hope for is to stop making things worse for ourselves. Since we tend to make things really bad for ourselves, that is more optimistic than it might sound at first blush.

January 1, 2010 at 2:52 pm

It is also important to remember that we are social animals, and spending too much time alone with just our own thoughts is a recipe for disaster. Most people report that they are happiest when they spend time with friends and family and in activities that take enough of their attention that they don’t have any left over to monitor their internal state. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi used pagers to randomly prompt people to write down what they were doing, their mood and what was on their mind. A large segment of the population was seen to be significantly more depressed when they spent large periods of time alone.

January 1, 2010 at 2:55 pm

I agree, and I’ve been hanging out with more people lately because of exactly that research! My positive psychology class has taught me a lot. You seem to be familiar with a lot of the same research, which is cool.

January 2, 2010 at 4:41 pm

Audrey Alverson

On the subject of being social animals, I have a different perspective to offer. I’m not educated nor trained in psychology, so I have no research other than my own life experience to justify what I’m going to say. I don’t believe we as humans can be simply lumped into a group of animals that are happier when with others, nor that “spending too much time alone with just our own thoughts is a recipe for disaster.” I have spent much time pondering this specific subject, and I now know without a doubt that this “norm” does not apply to me. If I spend too much time with others, too much time socializing (and it doesn’t take much to get to the too much point), I feel lost. I completely lose sight of who I am, where I’m going, and what I want my life to be. I need large amounts of solitude (with nothing but me and my thoughts) to *avoid* disaster. It is as necessary as oxygen or water to my survival. So while the research obviously has validity, I think it’s important to keep in mind that humans are dynamic beings and there is certainly not a single recipe for happiness, nor a recipe for disaster.

January 1, 2010 at 2:50 am

Carla Berkley

Seems to me that acceptance of one’s genetic and environmental limitations (and opportunities) enables one to see and choose the opportunities available leading to greater contentment. I don’t believe in a “just world.” I do believe those with fortitude, determination, and hard work can overcome those limitations.

January 1, 2010 at 2:57 pm

Carla, it is true. And believing that life is not fair does not mean you stop trying. It just means accepting the things you cannot change, I think.

January 1, 2010 at 3:20 pm

I agree.

January 2, 2010 at 4:10 pm

lauren