To sleep, perchance to dream

So here's a question for the ages...why don't babies like to sleep?  Or if many babies do indeed enjoy slumberland, why doesn't my baby??  Now, I should say he's pretty good at night.  Tends for fall asleep pretty quickly after his last feed and stay asleep for 6-7 hours.  Then it's a feed, back to sleep for 2-3 hours and then a morning cuddle/feed/nap for 2-3 hours.  But as soon as that sun rises, he wants to be fully part of the day!  The problem with this is, he NEEDS his naps.  I know this as his mommy but as much as I try reasoning with him ("Sweetheart you're upset because you're tired.  That's why I'm asking you to nap."), it's a struggle.  As I've said, I've taken to rocking him to sleep, and he's been going down quicker and quicker (yesterday he had a record four naps!), but this morning he fought me.  Granted it was only about ten minutes before he was out, and I think he was just overtired (imagine being overtired at 8am!), but I just don't get why he fights me at all.  Sleeping is so wonderful.  Pretty much from teenagehood onwards we are searching for ways to sleep longer, and yet, infants and children, who apparently need their sleep the most, fight tooth and nail to avoid it!  Now, I guess I get it with children from about age 3 to 10, because their daytime lives are pretty darn good: all they need to really do all day is play with their toys so who would want to miss out on that?  But what is my little guy missing out on really?  Our play time is him listening to me (poorly) sing him repetitive songs and staring at me making silly faces at him.  Not things I'd find hard to pass up!  And yet each eat, play, sleep cycle, he often fights me on the third piece.  I guess it's really my own fault though...when I was a baby I never napped!  In fact, at daycare I actually had to sit in the coatroom during nap time because I would disturb the other kids.  Naps were for bozos I thought at the time.  So maybe I shouldn't be so hard on my little guy.  At least he does end up going down most of the time, and that's more than my mother could say for me (however, she did drink 7-8 cups of coffee a day while she was breastfeeding me so maybe that has something to do with it).  In any case, if anyone has any advice they can give or if they just want to commiserate, I'm all ears!