I suspect that human happiness comes down to satisfying three desires: being useful, telling stories and collecting stuff. This sounds like a reductio ad absurdum, but I really suspect that life is that simple. Religion? It is a combination of the first and second desire. Blogs? Telling stories, of course, with the ernest political/activist blogs including a big dollop of the desire to be useful. And eBay? Well, it is more than simple collecting; it has a big story-telling element, and of course the eBay’s reputation system is a classic instance of amplifying the desire to be useful in the service of the community. And raising children? Lots of being useful plus no small measure of the other two.
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