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All life is problem solving

 What is happiness? Popper answered this question the best in his answer to what is the meaning of life.

"All life is problem solving"

Problem in the Popperian sense is not always something bad. Problem can be any unsolved thing that you are working on and the definition is not limited to science, art etc. Raising your kids well is also a problem in this sense, and so is trying to get better at dodgeball. Working on a problem is a process of knowledge creation.

So in a sense, life is a process of knowledge creation. What is a good life then? what is a happy life?

It is a life where the problems you are working on, the knowledge that you are creating, are interesting to YOU. This is the key here - YOU find these problems interesting and are free of coercion in choosing these problems. This is easier said than done. I wrote about it in an earlier blog post, but I believe most misery (excluding misery due to physical pain/limitations, or psychological issues that are real e.g. being diagnosed with a terminal illness etc.) is due to coercion. 

And this coercion is insidious since almost everything out there is trying to coerce you - your genes are trying to coerce you into their own evolutionary agenda, society and culture, and your own wrong ideas are coercing you. It is difficult, but not impossible, to escape the assaults of coercion from all directions. Your genes want you to chase wealth, status, sex. Your culture wants you to marry, obey parents, pray, buy a house, have children and raise them a specific way etc. All these ideas are competing for your attention and action. And most people spend their lives acting on them. However, beneath all these there is a true pure INTEREST or several INTERSTS which are true to the individual without any coercive forces. Happiness is trying to take away the layers of coercion and working on these pure interests. Solving the problems therein. 

So no matter how much money, security, prestige the things you are working on generate for you and no matter how noble, moral or important you think they are - if you are not genuinely interested in them you cannot be happy. 

And like Popper said should it so happen that you actually reach the pinnacle or solve the problem you are working on, that is not the sad end - there always are several little problem children for you to work on. 

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