The above quote is from the iconic movie, "The Princess Bride" which came out in 1987. It's a fabulous movie and if you haven't seen it (I'm not sure how you avoided it up to now, but just in case) you really should. It's a classic. The reason I am quoting this here is that it is a surprisingly penetrating insight into the human condition for a movie that is otherwise a fairly lighthearted comedy. In one pithy statement the hero Wesley shows how hollow the movie's main message about true love conquering all and the hero getting the girl truly is. The implication here is that, even after Wesley has achieved his goals, gotten Buttercup and retired from being the Dread Pirate Roberts, life will not be lived happily ever after. And because it is Wesley saying it early in the movie, it shows he knows this from the very beginning.
As anyone alive knows, life is not easy. You spend the first 5 years of your life desperately trying to learn how to be a big boy or girl, to make your parents proud, only to then be shipped off to school for the next twelve years of your life, whether you want to be there or not. Those twelve years, or more, are often fraught with misery as bullies, school work and the dramas of everyday life weigh you down and crush your spirit. Then, when you graduate, it is either off to work in the real world, or to get even more schooling. All of this effort is merely to prepare you for your next big adventure, which is life in the working world. Life there is no picnic either as more work, the pressures of adult life and family obligations make finding time to do the things that you enjoy a rarity. The reality of life is that you will toil away, day in and day out on things you will likely not enjoy. Then what? Old age and physical decrepitude force you to retire, live off what little you have put away and whatever government handouts are available to you until you die. So when you are young enough to do the things you enjoy, you will instead spend your life laboring on things you don't; and when you are finally old enough to stop, you are likely no longer physically capable of doing those things anyway. Life is pain, Highness.
So, knowing this, it always comes a surprise to me that otherwise rational, moral, law abiding people I know choose to reproduce. Not only does having children add to the burdens of your life, but it also creates a new life upon which the burdens of life can now be placed. Having a child is giving a new life the gift of 65 or more years of hard labor. It appears facially immoral, cruel and heartless. Worse, unlike other human interactions and moral actions, it is not a deal that you make with society or even with another rational, intelligent adult. The child literally has no choice in the matter. It doesn't exist when the decision to create it occurs. It has no say in whether it wants to exist or not (as far as we know. Depending on your religious beliefs, your views on this could differ). The only times we, as a society, view the imposition of hard labor as morally justified is as a punishment for immoral deeds. Here however, there is no immoral deed (again, assuming you don't believe in Karma or some other theory of rebirth based on the quality of your actions in a previous life). It is merely the seemingly arbitrary choice of the parents to have unprotected sex which results in a baby. A baby who gets to learn, over the course of its life, the truth of Wesley's words: "Life is pain".
Thus, it surprises me not at all that, as the world industrializes and men and women are given access to prophylactics and abortion, that the total fertility rate drops, often below the replacement rate. As much as parents tout the gift of life, when given the option, fewer and fewer people choose to give that gift. The reason for this? "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
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