How can we know what the best things in life are?

This inquiry is quite likely an unanswerable one. The idea that a single answer could somehow encompass the enormous scope of a single life, let alone all of us; straight up hubris.

But I have an answer that’s a good enough approximation.

And unsurprisingly, it’s in the title: the ingredients for “the good life” are things you can’t hoard.

That's it. That’s the tweet.

Now, to delve deeper, there are probably excruciatingly-pedantic exceptions to this. But in general, and by collective fiat, the ingredients that constitute “the good life” resist any efforts to be squirrelled away.

Humor. Good food. Good company. Friendship. Moments. Music.^[1] The pure bliss of an utterly relaxing afternoon. A fleeting glimpse of beauty. A cat snuggling on your lap.^[2] And of course, love.

Some of these simply cannot be compiled or collected in any sense. Try stacking 'moments' on a shelf, or bottling the feeling of beauty. Impossible. Others are cheapened by overindulgence. No one consistently puts out 8 hour comedy specials, and even the Gilmore Girls tap out at four thanksgivings.

To add another onion to this ogre: the things that function as asynchronous stand-in’s for the above are almost always hoarded.

Photos, trinkets, aspirational Spotify playlists you never actually listen to. These are symbolic representations of a desire to grasp what cannot be held. They are wonderful in their own right, but they're wonderful precisely because they are reminders of that which is fleeting, not because of their intrinsic value.

They gesture at meaning, they don't contain it.

If you doubt that this is too bold a claim, consider if you'd equally appreciate if your family photos, or that crayon-squiggle of a drawing your 3-year old made for your fridge, were swapped with some random family's?

Anywho, to wrap this puppy up^[3], the real utility here is in having a shorthand for knowing where to spend our focus and care. It's been extremely clarifying for me in realizing that when I'm the most fulfilled, it's in measured attention to the simmering "good life" stew. And when I'm most frustrated or down, I often find I've led myself astray searching for meaning in all the wrong places.

So while you can’t hoard love, you probably shouldn't want to either.