I know there is pain and loss and hunger in the world but I am still interested in the idea that this is a good time but that we have trouble seeing and feeling the goodness. I thought watching the movie "As Good As It Gets" might give me some ideas. It won 17 awards in 1998. It was fun and moving and so good that I watched it over again when Lynn was home. For me, that is something since it is over 2 hours long.
Similarly, I plan to look over the book by Karen Maezen Miller "Paradise in Plain Sight" again. It is non-fiction and Miller is an excellent writer. I have read the book but not with an eye on the thesis exemplified by the title.
One picture of paradise would be one in which humans are immortal. But that idea and many others related to the ideally best place may be too simplistic and unrealistic. It might be that our emotional makeup prevents us from seeing the upside of what we take to be negative. It is clear that our emotional goals come and go and that we don't have sufficiently great knowledge and memories to grasp the specifications of a heaven.
Say I write a story and put my heart into it. I re-write it until it is more or less totally wonderful but then the manuscript gets destroyed by a storm or a fire or eaten by the dog. I might be carrying a chip on my shoulder for the rest of my life and simply be unable to accept the loss. Even without writing such a story, I know that after my wonderful success, the joy and the honors would fade. I wonder if we will ever get to be better philosophers and more accepting of deeply unpleasant events someday.
