Midlife: A Philosophical Guide
These kinds of discussions remind of this passage from Mere Christianity by CS Lewis:<p>Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and 
want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts 
of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep 
their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or 
first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites 
us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. 
I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful mar- 
riages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. 
There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which 
just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife 
may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and 
chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us. Now 
there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right one.<p>(1) The Fool&#x27;s Way. — He puts the blame on the things themselves. He goes 
on all his life thinking that if only he tried another woman, or went for a more 
expensive holiday, or whatever it is, then, this time, he really would catch the 
mysterious something we are all after. Most of the bored, discontented, rich 
people in the world are of this type. They spend their whole lives trotting from 
woman to woman (through the divorce courts), from continent to continent, 
from hobby to hobby, always thinking that the latest is &quot;the Real Ihing&quot; at last, 
and always disappointed.<p>(2) The Way of the Disillusioned &quot;Sensible Man.&quot; — He soon decides that 
the whole thing was moonshine. &quot;Of course,&quot; he says, &quot;one feels like that when 
one&#x27;s young. But by the time you get to my age you&#x27;ve given up chasing the 
rainbow&#x27;s end.&quot; And so he setties down and learns not to expect too mueh 
and represses the part of himself which used, as he would say, &quot;to cry for the 
moon.&quot; This is, of course, a mueh better way than the first, and makes a man 
much happier, and less of a nuisance to society. It tends to make him a prig (he 
is apt to be rather superior towards what he calls &quot;adolescents&quot;), but, on the 
whole, he rubs along fairly comfortably. It would be the best line we could take 
if man did not live for ever. But supposing infinite happiness really is there, 
waiting for us? Supposing one really can reach the rainbow&#x27;s end? In that case 
it would be a pity to find out too late (a moment after death) that by our sup- 
posed &quot;common sense&quot; we had stifled in ourselves the faculty of enjoying it.<p>(3) The Christian Way. — The Christian says, &quot;Creatures are not born with 
desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger well, 
there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such 
a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If 
I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the 
most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of 
my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. 
Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, 
to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hånd, never 
to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, 
never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind 
of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true 
country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed 
under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that 
other country and to help others to do the same.&quot;