This is just sad... and lovely too

For some reason I followed a link, and then another, and ended up at The Anchoress, reading Failure to love is killing Europe.

Sad:

Over at the Corner, they’re quoting Bruce Thornton: [Europe is not reproducing because]
“children are expensive. They require you to sacrifice your time and your interests and your own comfort. If your highest good is pleasure, if your highest good is a sophisticated life, then children get in the way. Why would you spend so much money and so much energy on children if your highest good is simply material well-being? That’s sort of the spiritual dimension of the problem.”

And lovely:

I’ve realized over the years that anti-life action, abortion, euthanasia, are all failures of love, and failures to be willing to open yourself up to all the ache and beauty that love brings. People don’t mind the beauty but they don’t want the ache, so they settle for a beauty less vibrant but safer.

"If your highest good is pleasure." Imagine a life like that.