Steve Stokes Afterthoughts

Here are some afterthought from Steve Stokes concerning our discussion last Wednesday:

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Steve,

All in all, I thought it was a very [good] session. I have three points I wanted to share with you.

First: I was not saying that a person needed to have passions or great passions to have a good life, my only point is that whatever passions one has, the fulfillment of those passions is paramount to the good life. I believe the Founding Fathers hit the nail on the head when they identified the pursuit of happiness as one of the unalienable rights of humans.

Second: I think the mode of conversation after the talk was over was more productive towards the exploration of the topic. When we are waiting our turns, the time lag disconnects the speakers from each other, and we are only allowed to make stilted sound bite statements. I don't think David really got a chance to understand that is was my position the fulfillment of personal passion is the one essential for a good life. It seemed as if David didn't think the rest of us were addressing the question at hand. I don't know, maybe it was a matter of semantic misunderstanding, but in any case the mode of conversation blocked us from resolving that difficulty. As I think on this, it seems like maybe David thought we were more answering "what are the essentials OF a good life", and he differentiated that from "what are the essentials FOR a good life", the former being the requirements of good living, and the latter being the resources/tools needed to bring about the good life.

Third: This is just a follow-up: when I reviewed David's six essentials they look more like a list of essentials for living a saintly life or a life that is good, as opposed to the "good life". Maybe in his mind the way to a good life is to live life as a saint, and so they equate.
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Thanks, Steve. Dave, feel free to respond.

At some point I plan to implement a bona fide electronic bulletin board or forum site, linked to this site, whereby you and Dave and others can carry on a more in depth, back and forth dialogue. In such a forum you would have ample time to present your arguments and make your case. You would not need to limit your time and wait for others to take their turn, as you do in a one hour podcast. I think that might address some of your concerns in your point number two. (Don't ask me to predict how long that might take me to get up and running though.) In the meantime, feel free to run your afterthoughts through me directly.

Cheers,

Steve