John Cheever's The Superintendent: does humanity add up to nothing?

[Summer M]

John Cheever's wonderful short story The Superintendent concludes with a sad question:


Why did Bronco and the Bestwicks and the Neguses and the grass widow in 7-F and Katie Shay and the stranger add up to nothing?

This brings about a more general philosophical question: does humanity add up to nothing? Does the good balance out the bad? Does the ugly even out the beautiful? Is there some sort of a philosophical equivalent of the physical laws of conservation of energy, so that no goodness or badness are ever created but merely shifted and transformed from previously-existing badness and goodness?

Your thoughts are appreciated.

[YesNo]

How does one add up goodness and badness to be able to say that the total sum is conserved over time? It is possible that the sum increases or decreases and is not conserved, but one wouldn't know unless one could determine how to compute that sum.

At the moment what seems to be the case is: if one feels in a bad mood, it "adds up" to nothing, but if one feels in a good mood, it "adds up" to something.

[Summer M]

Of course it is impossible to quantify happiness and misery, goodness and badness. This was a philosophical question, not a scientific or a quantitative one.

[YesNo]

I was reading William James' essay, "Is Life Worth Living", and he concludes with:


These, then, are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

That sounds like good advice.

Regarding the balance of goodness against badness, one might as well stand with what one sees as good and suffer any sadness and joy in doing that. The alternative is to give up.

[Summer M]

The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.
—Waiting for Godot

[YesNo]

The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.
I see where you are getting the "conservation" idea.

There are many more people and other creatures capable of tears alive today and so there are more opportunities for tears than in the past. So the quantity of tears has likely increased and because of that the quantity of tears is not conserved. Probably the same is true for the quantity of laughter.