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Comment by jacobolus | Hacker News Reader

Was David Brooks dumping his wife of 3 decades for his 2-decades-younger research assistant and then writing passive-aggressive columns in the NYT about how people abandoned by their spouses should suck it up and stop bothering them an example of résumé virtuous or eulogy virtuous?

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Following your heart is a virtue. Writing about it bluntly, doubly so. Is one not free to leave a spouse for someone else? Regardless of age (assuming everyone is a consenting adult!)?

I give credit to those who live their life intentionally. You only get one. If you’re unhappy, pull the sails and head towards happiness. Valid point to not be a dick about it though (I haven’t read to know if these articles you mention are passive aggressive in tone). You can be direct but still kind.

It is really hard to invest in this line of thinking, but to live 'intentionally' is something admirable.

Maximize your happiness while minimizing the suffering you cause. You will cause suffering, even if unintentional, this is the human condition. “Mindful hedonism” if you will.

Life has many chapters. Celebrate the joy, happiness, and success there was, mourn your losses and failures, then move on. This too shall pass.

E.g. Newt Gingrich.

>Following your heart is a virtue.

No, that's a modern misconception.

"Following your heart" is just an action with no moral value in itself. Whether it's a virtue depends on the contents of your heart.

All kinds of scumbags and horrible people who hurt others "followed their heart" in doing so.

Who cares about virtue? All we should really measure is destructiveness. If following your heart isn't destructive, then go for it. Make your own virtues out of something else.

Food for thought: People live as they live, and can have great thoughts, insights and advice without adhering to your interpretation of their words or actions.

Food for thought: People can publicly express half-baked thoughts, banal “insights”, hypocritical advice, and horribly wrong predictions for decades without ever admitting their mistakes, and can pretend independence where convenient but unfailingly fall in line with their assigned talking points when directed, but still be treated as worth taking seriously because of their social position.

I knew about the wives, but did he in fact write such columns? I read the NY Times, but seldom Brooks's columns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/opinion/david-brooks-leav...

Thanks. A handy reminder why I seldom read his columns. Is that what it's about?

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