1959 Oct 2

3500 Fairpoint Pasadena Calif=

Sabrina born Sept 29 all in pink of health love=

Linus...

2 October, 1959

Dear Linus,

Many thanks for your letters, both the one from Geneva and the latest.

I have been busy trying to write my thesis and get things done, and also the house we were trying to buy has fallen through. Consequently, I have not written.

I am quite pleased with Julia. She has been working very hard to get things going well, she is on a pretty strict schedule to get things done, and we are getting along well. The boy is full of beans; school does him a lot of good.

We are pleased about your new girl though I cannot say that I am much in favor of her name. We are trying to think of names and it certainly is difficult. I shall tell you something about what I think about money. It seems to me that any any allowance or other sort of money that I or someone else gets is essentially good if it increases that persons liberty, increases his freedom of action. I think that the money is not worth it if it decreases liberty, if one has to do things or behave in such and such a way in order to get the dough. Consequently, it seems to me good that you and Anita can broaden your lives so much, you are not accountable to anyone except yourselves, but not accountable to any one particular person. It is magnificent that your lives can be so full, that you being yourselves can see so many possibilities in life, can then do them. It gives you freedom of course to make a ball of things too, if you should want.

Now an allowance is dangerous, for while it increases liberty in the sense that it allows things to be done that otherwise could not be done, it might restrict liberty because the giver may feel that he has the right to control the behavior of the receiver in some way. If the receiver admits that the giver has some control, if the receiver loses his liberty in order to gain the money, then it seems to me bad. In particular I shall be damned first before doing something for someone for the lolly.

Of course this is not quite right, because one has to eat and consequently one has to have a job and if one has a job then there are restrictions on one of some sort. However, one is willing to put up with more restrictions from some people than with others.

Now it seems to me that we, you me and Pop, are rather alike in some ways. One way is that we will not be kicked around by the others, and the other is that if we give money to someone we expect him to do what we want. These are mutually exclusive. It seems to me, that though Pa has been immensely good about not restricting, he basically feels that he can say what the hell goes on, as evidenced by the fact that he thinks he can make me follow his hair brained ideas by cutting off the lolly, and by the fact that he will not make a hard and fast agreement. He is loose with the talk but will not arrange a definite amount per unit time automatically regularly.

If thats the way he feels, he'll have to keep it. An allowance gives me liberty to stay in academic Europe, if thats what I wanted to do. That is the minimum standard of living possible an a European academic salary is below the minimum standard of living that I am willing to accept. Now I think that you think that I do not want a European academic life, and that there is a way to get me out of it. Well, in a sense you are right. I do not think I can be happy as a chemist. I am not so sure about the academic part of it. I rather like being stimulated by a lot of young people about, and having the summers off, and not having to work on any set job, say electronic engineering, for any extended time. That is, I am interested in designing things for a while, but then I get bored. Anyway, life is a compromise and we shall see. At least you have me thinking about it all.

I might say that I appreciate very much your obviously sympathetic letters. While I do not wholely agree with your philosophy of noncompetition, it is obvious that you have made a better solution to our mutual problem than I, and I think you solution is improving as evidenced by you being willing to take summer holidays. There is our rivalry which must affect our relations(and how much help you can give me) until I have settled and am satisfied with my life.

[Peter Pauling]