On gratitude and Romeo and Juliet

First, a few words on why I started this blog.  For as long as I can remember, it has been interesting to me to think about “big questions” – as my favorite book put it, “life, universe, and everything”. And for a long time now, I have been intrigued by the idea of writing those random thoughts down, to come back later and see how my thinking has changed, or to take it further. Well, it is time to try. I will keep the blog open to the world but primarily, I am writing it for myself. I have no illusion about discovering great universal wisdom. Whatever thoughts come into my head, surely came into many heads before, and much smarter than mine.

With that, today’s thought is about gratitude and passion. It is common and well-known wisdom, from Greek philosophers to Arthur Schopenhauer to Buddhism, that we should be grateful for what we have, including life itself, and happy with it, and not grow desperate and miserable because of what we do not, or cannot, have.

Not a great logical link, but it made me remember the story of Romeo and Juliet. I do not recall the plot details well, but the protagonists are both from wealthy, powerful, and influential Italian society families (Montecchi and Capuleti). As such, I am sure they lack neither the comforts of life nor access to great opportunities to do something useful with their own lives and influence the lives of others. Yea, Juliet is to marry Count Paris, which kind of sucks but ultimately would give her even more power to do great things by bringing her close to the ruling family of Verona. And what do they do with all of these comforts and opportunities? They throw it all away and ultimately die for their passion!

Easy to say, come on, those are hormone-overwhelmed adolescents, literally drunk on their emotions, you cannot expect them to be wise and rational, can you? No. But why does this story about unwise and not rational young people fascinate us for hundreds of years and inspire multiple remakes and derivative art? Would we not be better served by stories of well-behaved young folks who study hard and work hard to better themselves and benefit society, and derive great happiness and satisfaction doing so? Some critics even go as far as to call “Romeo and Juliet” a cautionary tale, an example not to follow. I don’t think so. We are not robots, programming our every step for the greater good. We are emotional beings, and examples of great passion impress and inspire us. Yes, untimely and tragic death is not a desirable outcome, but many if not all of the greatest achievements of humanity came as a result of someone’s great and all-consuming passion, someone’s dedication if not obsession.

Another example that comes to mind is the example of explorers. Throughout the recorded history of humanity, there was no shortage of people who gave up the comforts of life, their wealth and careers, and sometimes their families, to explore places no one has gone to before and do things no one has done. I am not sure that this means they were not grateful for what they had, but the point is that they were willing to give it all up and risk their lives for something they did not have.

In both cases, I believe we can trace the origins of such unwise behavior to evolutionary programming. Easy to see this for romantic love. If people did not fall in love, often quite irrationally so, and did not at least temporarily lose their minds (the English expression “mad about you” is quite accurate), the continuation of the species would be negatively affected. But also in the case of explorers, there is a clear evolutionary benefit. Imagine a tribe of hunter-gatherers happening onto a particularly fertile valley. Abundant fruits and nuts, lots of small animals easy to trap, and large predators well fed so they don’t bother humans. So easy to settle and enjoy the good life. But there would be one or a few tribe members who would say “We should go end explore what’s behind this mountain range”, even if it is hard and dangerous to cross that range. But going or not going could determine the survival of the tribe in case of a flood, a fire, or any other natural disaster.

So should we be grateful for and content with whatever our fate brought us, or should we follow a passion or a call of the unknown? I think there is no universal answer. It is very true that especially in developed countries we tend to take what we have for granted, and often do not even realize how extremely lucky we are, and how many people in the world today do not even have enough to eat, a safe shelter, or access to a medicine. Changing that reference point could both make us happier and more compassionate to those who have less. But at the same time, it would be such a boring sterile world if some of us did not fall madly in love beyond any reason, or did not go climb Mount Everest for nothing else than to be closer to heaven.