Author’s Note: It seems I’ve fully given in to my philosophical tendencies with today’s post, so I hope you’ll forgive me. While I typically like to keep things here focused on questions about the narrative arts, and writing in particular, I have been reading a lot of the great philosophers as of late, and I guess it was only a matter of time before I felt the need to express some of those ideas divorced from any discussion of art.

So often do we forget the many pleasures life offers us. Whe...