Recently, or maybe not-so-recently but recently enough, a friend and I were discussing utilitarianism.  Don’t get the wrong idea here though, we’re not smart.  More often than not, our conversations usually take place electronically, and usually consist in both parties sending GIFs back and forth, and when we do have conversations in person, they are painfully socially-awkward, and consist mostly of giggling (read: snorting loudly in public places).

Mooooving right along, we were discussing a central point in John Stuart Mill’s On Utilitarianism.  Basically, that the basis for action is doing that which maximizes happiness for the most number of people, while minimizing pain, and essentially, we are motivated to act in the hopes of attaining happiness.

How is happiness the only desirable end for human beings (or any beings but whatever)?  How can you prove that the reason we act is to attain happiness?  To this, Mill plainly responds that the only proof that happiness is the ultimate end is that we desire it.

I pondered this, and was kind of taken aback by its simplicity because, well, it made sense.

We’re both 20-somethings, confused as fuck about life, a few years into a university degree but still a few more years from graduating, and neither of us are really sure why we’re doing anything.  But we can both always agree that while we don’t necessarily know what we want to do with our lives (whatever that means), we both know that we want to be happy and comfortable and satisfied.  So I guess this whole utilitarian thing makes sense on some level. 

I eat because I’m hungry because I’m happy when I’m full.  I buy clothes because it’s a social norm/socially expected/socially imposed (and some other reasons.. I guess I like clothes) because I don’t want to get arrested because I don’t want to go to jail because I am unhappy when… I am in jail… not that I’ve ever been to jail… I talk to my friends because I get anxious when I’m alone in my head for too long and being anxious is uncomfortable and I can only be completely happy when I’m completely comfortable.

But I still wasn’t satisfied, there has to be some other motive for my actions. 

What really irks me about this whole acting to be happy thing was that it seems that the happiness part is so far down the line.  The fact that I have to think about how this action will eventually at some point maybe kind of potentially make happy frustrated me a little bit.  If it’s so far removed from the initial action, is it fair to consider it as motivation for action?

For me anyway, the use of the word motivation implies that you have to be aware of it as a motivation.  If you are motivated to act, it means that you know why you’re acting.  If happiness does not cross your mind, if you only realize that happiness will come from this after you have acted, can it really count as your motivation?

I thought about this for a while, and then it hit me – I act not necessarily to attain happiness, but to avoid boredom. 

I wish I could say that I do things because I’m trying to be happy, but at this point, I don’t think I do.  And I know this is going to come off as sounding super fucking depressing, but it’s not, I swear – just because I’m not happy does not mean I am unhappy.  I just feel like I’m not there yet, like at this point in my life I’m just trying to keep myself occupied and moving before I start analyzing things too closely.  That’s what my twenties are for, right? Making questionable (read: bad) choices (read: mistakes).  I have the whole rest of my life to look around and chill and take the scenic route and make carefully calculated decisions.

Right now, I’m doing shit just for the momentum, to keep myself going.  One day, maybe/hopefully I’ll be happy, and maybe I’ll retrospectively credit my happiness to my earlier life choices, but as of right now, happiness is too far down the line for me to consider it as my motivation for action (or at least not my only motivation).

I basically go to school because I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.  Yes, I’m there to get an education; yes, I’m there to get a diploma; yes, I’m there to hopefully get a half-decent job once I graduate, but really, I don’t know what else I could do if I wasn’t a full-time student.  As long as I’m occupied doing something, I’m okay, even if that something is sometimes-but-not-always boring and graded and ranked.

So my basis for action? Momentum.  Because honestly, I’m too scared to see what would happen if I just stopped, because I’m not ready to stop, because I’m 21 and 2 years into a philosophy degree, because I’m trying to learn and think at the most foundational of levels, because I want to know stuff, because I don’t want my mind to petrify, because I want to keep talking and rambling and writing, because… I want to be happy.  

…Crap.