Values and Likes

I have known any number of situations in which a liberal woman was with a conservative man. Typically they did not get along as to how to bring up children. The woman would attack the man for damaging the child psychologically, and the man would attack the woman for destroying the structure that he wanted to put into place. In many cases both had a point.

The problem in these situations has been the discord between likes and values. The man was attracted to artistic free-spirited women; but in a marriage he wanted a traditional wife. This is a recipe for disaster for everyone, including himself. The man would get the woman he wanted, then he would be unhappy with her behaviour. He would have gone for his lusts and found it taking him into a place that he did not want to go.

These men need to figure out what they want. Do they want a cat kind of person, or do they want a dog kind of person? A cat will be expected to act like a cat. A dog will be expected to act like a dog. If you go for a cat but want her to act like a dog, this simply will not take place. Everyone will be miserable, and that will include the man himself.

The solution is to bring values and likes into accord. It is to either learn to value the artistic kind, or else learn to find the traditional kind of women attractive. In either case, the man would be acting as a single unit rather than as a bundle of conflicting motives; and in either case he – and the woman with whom he would partner – will have a much better life.

Happiness is a function of living at the intersection of one’s values and one’s likes. Living in the place of one’s values without one’s likes creates a life of grim joyless duty. Living in a place of one’s likes without one’s values takes one into the land of guilty and shameful pleasures. It is when the values and likes are in accord that happiness can be found. And that means, once again, either bringing one’s likes to accord with one’s values or bringing one’s values to accord with one’s likes.

Not all men who do what I have written about are bastards. Most however are confused, and all without exception become miserable and make others miserable as well. The solution is to reconcile one’s values and one’s likes. Either learn to like what you value or learn to value what you like. At that point happiness – and peace – can actually become possible.