Life, liberty, and the pursuit of misery

Genetically engineered joy would blind us to important truths | Marvin Olasky

With that historically dire day, the Ides of March, coming next week, it's time for a column in praise of misery. I'll get into it this way: How would you react if a trustworthy person offered to engineer genetically a future child or grandchild of yours so he would live a life of happiness—with the only cost being a permanent relinquishing of the option of being sad?

If the offer were legitimate, you might easily think, "What's wrong with that?" After all, as we find ways to defeat physical disease, so why not also rout psychological dis-ease? We tell our children when we drop them off for a birthday party, "Have a good time," so why not make every day a party?

But other questions arise. What if sadness sometimes leads to breakthroughs? What if some emptiness comes from God to make us realize that we need Him to fill the holes in our souls?