What Does Greg Egan's Equation For A Meaningful Life Mean

Greg Egan’s Equation for a Meaningful Life In Greg Egan’s short story “Reasons to be Cheerful”, he offers a situation where a hopeless and depressed man, Mark, is given control over his emotions and overall happiness through neurological surgery. Mark believed that this surgery would make him “whole again”, as it would allow him to always experience happiness, a stark contrast from his previous depressed state (Egan, 8). However, through the completion of the story, Egan suggests that complete happiness cannot lead to a meaningful life, unless it is balanced out with other natural emotions. Egan offers three very different stages of Mark’s life in this short story, the first of which is his life as a child with a cancerous tumor. This tumor was releasing an endorphin called Leu-enkephalin, which was creating a sense of euphoria in Mark, where he goes as far

He said “Nothing gave me the slightest pleasure. Nothing,” and even the things that previously gave him joy were not remotely interesting to him anymore (4). As time progressed “the pathways those dead neurons normally stimulated were withering away”, depriving him of any chance at happiness in the future (5). Put simply, Mark feels he has no real future, life, or meaning, nor does he hold out any hope that his emotions might someday become more balanced. Egan, again, relates total sadness with a lack of life, much like how he connected death and total happiness in 12-year-old Mark. It is between these two chapters of Mark’s life that Egan argues for the necessity of a balance between human emotions and displays just how detrimental it can be to live without that balance. Luckily for Mark, he is contacted by Doctor Durrani who offers him a new procedure that would allow him to potentially control his feelings and escape his depressive