Do you want to be right or happy ?

Sitting around with a group of people discussing the challenges of communication in relationships when one person offered an insight that I really liked:

"You can be right or you can be happy."

Can't you be both? 

One person suggested: "If I'm right, then I am happy."

"Ah, but if you think you are right, reason surely tells you that you may be mistaken. Right ? So your happiness is not assured."

Turns out that Voltaire has wrestled with this question in a thought-story which is produced in its entirety below.

Philosophy is a sandbox: get in & play !

Virtually everyone is aware of the trolley problem in philosophy: a run-away trolley/streetcar/tram is going to kill four people, but you're standing by a switch and you have the capacity to redirect the tram to another track where it will kill one person - do you pull the switch? 

The 'trolley problem' is a staple of philosophy - and it is an example of staple method used in philosophy - the thought experiment.

Or put another way, 'what if' questioning. Or to put a fancy term on it: hypotheticals.

Philosophy then, is a sandbox. It is a place for grownups to play with ideas, concepts, hypotheticals, thought-experiments (e.g., in software development).