The Good Life

In my favorite webcomic, The Order of the Stick, there's a moment in which one of the main heroes, Elan, learns that his father, Tarquin, is the brutal ruler of a vast evil empire. The two characters, both fully aware that they're characters in a story, discuss the narrative implications of Tarquin's position. Elan warns his father that some hero is bound to kill him because heroes always win (at least in fictional stories like theirs). Tarquin both agrees and disagrees. He knows that a hero will eventually defeat him, but he also knows that, until then, he'll get to live like a king. He accepts that he'll be killed, but everyone dies eventually, and in the meantime, he gets to live the good life as an evil emperor.

Yet, even accounting for his eventual death, Tarquin's worldview is short-sighted. There is such a thing as an afterlife, especially in their world, where the afterlife is a place that everyone knows about. Tarquin must know where his actions are taking him, and he certainly won't be "living the good life" there.

Furthermore, there is a lot of personal leeway in determining what makes a life "good." Certainly, wealth helps, and admittedly, Tarquin has that in spades, but "living the good life" doesn't always mean having wealth or power of many of the other things that people typically seek. One can have a good life by being content with their life, by having good relationships with their family and friends, and by enjoying the personal peace of having a clear conscience. Being good can contribute to "living the good life" in mortality, and it (plus a few ordinances) guarantees that one will have a good afterlife as well.

I admit that Tarquin was right that he would enjoy great wealth and power during his mortal life by playing the role of the evil emperor, but that's not all that matters, especially in the long run, and it's certainly not the only way to ensure that one has a good life. One can have a good life by being good. And while I acknowledge that trying to be good all the time can have its drawbacks, those drawbacks are far outweighed by the benefits in this life and the next. I want to live a good life, not necessarily by taking pleasure in being wealthy and/or powerful, but by finding personal peace and true happiness in being good.