Do I have to? Is this necessary for happiness?
Yes.
I think this is the point I want to make rather strongly. While there are exceptions to everything, people with no pressure (internal or external) on them to do things will generally go soft, flabby, passive, dull, and dumb. And often will start to medicate themselves (alcohol is typical) to keep themselves floating in grey nothingness without anything happening to them.
That's why retiring (or becoming a housewife) can be dangerous.
Fighting for something you really want will both improve you and make your feel alive.
Or my parents are unusual in this regard?
I think they're typical, but I also think you don't want to be typical.
That's why retiring (or becoming a housewife) can be dangerous.
Um, being a housewife can be a lot of work.
As many people have noted, Less Wrong currently isn't receiving as much content as we would like. One way to think about expanding the content is to think about which areas of study deserve more articles written on them.
For example, I expect that sociology has a lot to say about many of our cultural assumptions. It is quite possible that 95% of it is either obvious or junk, but almost all fields have that 5% within them that could be valuable. Another area of study that might be interesting to consider is anthropology. Again this is a field that allows us to step outside of our cultural assumptions.
I don't know anything about media studies, but I imagine that they have some worthwhile things to say about how we the information that we hear is distorted.
What other fields would you like to see some discussion of on Less Wrong?