Group 3 "Happiness"

Lets start out with a joke.... What did the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor? "Make me one with everything." after receiving his slathered bun he hands the vendor a $20 bill. After waiting for a moment, he asks the vendor for his change. what does the hot dog man say in response? "Change only comes from within." This is favorite of Christoper Hitchens when he speaks and writes about the seeker's quest for knowledge east of Suez. group three's discussion question for the first portion of " Happiness" is this: Who wants to suffer? M.R. asks who wakes up wanting to spend the day in agony....we do however wake up wanting to avoid unnecessary pain for ourselves and others around us. he lays out two ways of looking at this desire....one is a pursuit of happiness and the other is a sense of duty. What motivates you personally as you awake each mourning and visualize the day that lies ahead of you? is it an insatiable appetite for good feelings for yourself and loved ones; while, avoiding anything that could bring about its antithesis? Or, do you plan and prioritise your movements according to unspoken familial and social contracts to which you are bound? maybe its a mixture of the two...perhaps neither of these sound like you at all. i find that much of what i do is out of a sense of duty to my family and friends, and also to my fellow man. i do have some selfishness thrown in the mix which is purely doing things for my own pleasure and or to stave off boredom. luckily my life is free from genuine misery because of the accident of my being born as a white middle class male in the U.S. so what i call avoiding suffering should be qualified a bit. So i guess I'm a duty bound kinda person. what are you? and if there are specific examples that you can throw in to help illustrate your self evaluation please include them.

Our factual question is: When approached about writing a book with his father, why did he agree but not believe he would ever write it?