We use the word ‘pleasure’
a lot, but not many people know about the true nature of it. In fact, everyone
wants pleasure, but no one wants to admit that they want it, because it seems
to be somehow tabooed socially, morally, or religiously.
The pursuit of pleasure
is not from altruistic motivation. Pleasure is generated through the
stimulation of one’s own senses, and the level of pleasure is the strongest especially
when all five senses are engaged. These senses belong to you not others. In
fact, there is no such thing as “pleasure for the sake of others.” Pleasure is
only for yourself.
When you get yourself
immersed in chasing pleasure, you gradually lose your selflessness and become a
person who is willing to sacrifice everything else for your own pleasure. This
is something we must guard against religiously, socially, and morally, which is
why the word ‘pleasure’ somehow has a negative connotation and feels like
something we shouldn't say openly or casually.
Pleasure itself is not a
bad thing. It's just a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment. Even if we can't
be hedonistic in every part of our lives, feeling pleasure often creates great
energy and enthusiasm in our lives. Then, how can we distinguish between
healthy and unhealthy pleasure?
First, pursuing pleasure
with the goal of fulfilling our own needs and desires creates problems. This is
because the power generated from pleasure is used to fuel your needs and
desires further, and you end up being dominated by your desire, dependent on
pleasure, and chasing only pleasure in life.
On the other hand,
enjoying pleasure without any selfish desire or purpose doesn't cause any
problem. There was no selfish desire or purpose in the first place, so there is
no desire to be fed by the power of pleasure. This pure pleasure can be a great
source of energy and passion in your life, enriching your life, so the more
opportunities you have for pleasure, the healthier you are.
One of the greatest
sources of pleasure for humans is sexual activity. Pleasure intensifies with
stimulus in the five senses added up: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, and
in having sex, all five are activated simultaneously.
When you have sex without
selfish desire and purpose of your own pleasure, like sex between a married
couple, it doesn't cause problems. This kind of pleasure creates energy that
keeps the couple and family together in this tough world. On the other hand,
the stronger the desire and purpose of pleasure, the more problems having sex
causes. It intensifies stress and wounds in yourself and the partner, leads to
possessiveness or dependence on the partner, and finally to criminal behaviors,
such as fanatical obsession with the partner or coercive sexual behaviors.
These are the kinds of pleasures that religious, social, and moral boundaries
guard against.
The criterion by which we
can judge whether a pleasure is healthy or unhealthy is whether it is driven by
selfish desires and purposes, or whether it arises and passes away naturally
and incidentally without desires and purposes. In fact, it is our selfish
desires and purposes, not pleasure, that should be guarded against.
It's worth noting that if
we can't make this distinction, we can either feel guilty about having pleasure
being wary of pleasure itself, or we can become dehumanized by indiscriminately
celebrating pleasure.
https://youtu.be/vz4_TuPwhD4?si=UTUN4RbTZ8rl5x0V
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