Day in and out, we all strive for something. Everything we do has one common end goal: Happiness. Aristotle wrote about living a life to attain Happiness. Our friends, family, experiences, and our attempt to reach a mean in virtuous activities all affect our measure of Happiness. Once we die, it can be determined whether or not we lived a happy life, but can that verdict change even after our death? After a person dies, are they still affected by the fortunes of those who outlive them?
Aristotle raises the point that the actions of those who outlive us affect our happiness, even after death. Friends and family can swing our happiness one way or the other while we are still living, but once our life has come to its completion, can what happens afterward determine whether we lived a happy life or not? The experiences and moments that we had up until our death cannot be changed after the fact. Once we die should that be the moment where our life gets tallied up until that point, all of the positive and negative added up to that point to give us some grand total on how we lived our life? If not, is the idea of a person’s happiness to be an ever changing, infinite idea?
Our life would be like a stones throw into the water and our death would be the moment we settle on the oceans floor. What of the ripples we left behind? They, being our actions, still go on and change events and affect others. Should they still account for our total happiness after we lie on the ocean floor? What about the ebbing of the stones of others? Should their waves be capable of disturbing our rest at the ocean floor? Perhaps we just feel their effect while we are still a part of the ocean of life and not once we reach our resting burial at the ocean floor.
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