On Pleasure

The positives and the perils of chasing it

Everything has peripheral features and everything has essential or defining features. If it’s peripheral, it’s there intermittently or unpredictably. If it’s essential, it’s there all the time, part of the core DNA.

A peripheral aspect of pleasure is that it’s attainable. We can get what we desire, but only depending on the amount of time and effort we invest, and what the object of desire actually is.

An essential feature of pleasure is that it induces the desire for more pleasure. In other words, satisfaction is always transient.

Why? Because an essential part of our desire is its novelty. We want it because we haven’t had it before, therefore we don’t know what it truly is (desire is curiosity driven).

And also — our interest in pursuing pleasure arises from being in a state of pain. We perceive through contrast. Pleasure is useful as a distraction from pain; pain gives pleasure potency.

Pleasure Requires Pain

If we were never in pain (e.g. boredom or shame or physical pain) the temptation of pleasure would not register with us. We would remain content in a state of pure being; specifically, things like going for a walk, looking out onto a body of water, writing a story, plucking weeds out of a garden, expressing appreciation without need for reciprocation to a person we found beautiful: these would be sufficient to occupy our time.

Other things, such as sugar, alcohol, notches on bedposts, career, recognition, validation, would lose their hold on us. If they came knocking on our door, we could agree to give them the time of day. But we would be aware of the hidden likelihood of a newly manufactured need.

If we were not in pain, pleasure would be just another animal moving out on the landscape.

We would float through life rather than being emotionally anchored to chases.