Meditation 13: The Life of Pleasure

The pursuit of pleasure has a bad name.  It is associated with that old excuse to forget our responsibilities and have a good time, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die." The stereotype of the hedonist, the person who lives for pleasure and takes pleasure to be the overall good, is that of a dissipated voluptuary who lives a round of excess and vice.

When pleasures are mentioned, the first that come to mind are physical pleasures.  These are like the pleasures of eating, drinking, having sex or doing drugs.  The pleasures of music, art and drama also involve the senses.  What links them together is a vital connection with the passing moment. Perhaps this is part of the reason that pleasure has had such a bad name in the history of philosophy.  Pleasures are ephemeral.   Whether unavoidable, like the physical pleasures of eating and breathing, or unnecessary, like the pleasures of ornament and ostentation, they all pass away.

The Epicureans were an ancient group of rational-minded philosophers who thought that pleasure is not to be despised.  However, as a group, they have been tarred with the brush of crude physical hedonism like that associated with Roman orgies.  In fact, the opposite is true.  They argued that pleasure's bad name is not warranted.  It is because we have invented the notion of eternity, gods and an afterlife that we are tortured by the transitoriness of all our pleasures.  Without that baggage, we would seek pleasure and avoid pain, like the other animals.  We would live more in the 'now', acknowledging our ignorance of what has gone before, and of what will happen tomorrow.   Rather than giving in to riotous pleasures, the Epicureans distinguished themselves by their reserved life style and the delight they took in conversation.  The simple pleasures are the best, along with those of friendship and open talk.  The pleasures of the senses are not to be despised, nor are they to take over a person's life.  With that proviso, a rational way of living has a valued place for pleasure.