The natural order is blithely unconcerned with our happiness; our bodies are built with the family's -- and, hence, the species' -- best interest in mind. So, by nature, we barrel bedward with all the zest of salmon swimming upstream to spawn. With the same results. Have you ever seen the battered state of those fish at the end of their selfless, frantic fight against the current, over rocks, up hills, and over dams -- their tattered skin, broken fins, and glassy stares? They look like parents emerging, drained and dazed, from Chuck E. Cheese.

No wonder modern man, having figured out biological means to skip that whole, exhausting slog, prefers to live in a fish farm. We'd rather subsist like those shiny, bloated salmon that slurp around in corporate hatcheries, chowing down on niblets of corn, staying healthy with regular doses of hormones and antibiotics, and using red dye No. 2 to keep our flesh nice and pink. We may not build up all those healthy Omega nutrients that the authorities say would make us "better fish." Our offspring are fewer, but fatter. We might not turn out as complex, or courageous -- but our "effort to pleasure" ratio is a whole lot better.