For many months now a particularly deep and difficult question has been on my mind – what is good, and what is bad (in the sense of us living creatures).

After many days of thought, I concluded that pain was bad, and happiness was good. Of course my answers may perhaps seem rather obvious, or even ridiculous that I even doubted the apparently obvious conclusions – but I felt I needed to know exactly why this was the case. And here is what I found:

I took the question right back to life and death. Is death bad? For if death is not bad, then pain is not bad either. Same with life. Is life good? For if life is good, happiness is good.

Pain is associated with death in the sense that pain is a warning sent from the brain to alert a creature that they will be wounded (resulting in a risk of blood loss, infection, and thus leading to likely death (depending)) or they will die instantly or within a short time frame. Thus, pain is a warning of death.

Why do creatures fear death? Why does a creature receive warnings when death could be close? Perhaps this is because of a living creature's natural instincts to continue on with life, to be able to experience the activities that promote the feelings happiness. Happiness seems to be what animals live for. But does this mean happiness is the greatest emotion of them all – an emotion that does not rely on a creature to be successful in the uncontrolled battle of life, but simply alive? For creatures are capable of feeling happiness from the smallest things. Whether it be a harmonious combination of sounds (music, in the case of humans) or the warmth of sun after a cold night.

This brings me to my final question. Would there be happiness if there was no pain? Would we not be able to contrast times of difficulty with the blissful times of joy? And thus life would just be mediocre? I conclude we need not worry about this questions, for there will always be pain, fear and death. These feelings (or warnings) and occurrences are just the result of living in an unplanned, uncontrolled universe with a vast array of possibilities. But I do believe we humans have earned a “gift” that no other living thing is yet able to possess, and that is the ability to not have to inflict pain or fear onto any other creature (excluding non-animal life, as we still have to eat). What is such a terrible shame is that so many people have not realised this gift, and refuse to take advantage of this priceless treasure.