A nice encapsulation of the idea that at the end of the day it is what we do that matters, and how everything else could be viewed as ultimately intangible and unreal; and, if consider the notion that we lead our lives in pursuit of something more than mere pleasure, but to have a purpose, maybe it could be extended to "the point is not to understand the world, or even to enjoy it, but to change it" .
Though maybe related is Woody Allen's quote, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my works; I want to achieve immortality through not dying". Indeed!
What also comes to mind are the following lines from Larkin's "Churchgoing" (the full poem, one of my favourites, is here)
"since someone will forever be surprising,
a hunger in himself to be more serious"
Maybe the driven are simply delusional, and it is better to sit back and enjoy things after all. Mill might have thought "it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied", but maybe he overestimated humans, and underestimated pigs.
Still, something reassuring in having simply wanting to enjoy life as a plan B, a worst case goal if all else fails :-)
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