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Old 11-14-2014, 09:25 AM
 
348 posts, read 827,478 times
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I believe that doing things one enjoys is healthful. There's no reason not to do this. A focus on suffering or strict deprivation seems to me very similar to self-flagellation.

However, I believe that direct pursuit of joy and pleasure has the potential to be self-destructive. Further, I believe that the path to true fulfillment (to speak like a philosopher) is in living a good life and bringing goodness to the world. In my experience, when I've pursued joy and pleasure for their own sake, or to remediate pain, they flee from me. It seems like those experiences lack substance. I find a state of joy to be an overlay, an addition overlying the true state. Seeking joy itself is pursuit of an overlay without a true state. A comparison would be that it's like buying extra RAM without having a computer, or getting browser extensions without a browser. It can seem nice to have, because of what it can do, but without something to act on - a computer, a browser, or the living of life - it's empty.

True joy I've found is not acquired as a result of pursuit, but as a result of living. It isn't chased down; it's found along the way of living life. This way, you have a state, the condition of your life (which may be anything, including misery and despair; some of my greatest joy was found while I was in such a state) and then have joy and pleasure as added components.
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Old 11-15-2014, 07:30 PM
 
13 posts, read 10,487 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rishi85 View Post
What is wrong with being a hedonist? Why doesn't everyone, at the very least intelligent, rational people indulge in it often?

Why don't you lie next to a swimming pool in full, bright sunshine while getting an occasional massage at the end of every day? The ancients had mastered this art(public salt baths anyone).
Depends on your definition of hedonism.

hedonism is selfish by design, and is not socially responsible, if everyone had a hedonistic mindset we would have a terribly selfish world. Many temporal hedonistic pursuits have permanent consequences, Drugs, Alcohol, Sex etc etc, all good things the in proper context but abused to extract as much pleasure as possible causes addiction and disease. Most pleasures, while they are nice, do not bring peace imho.
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Old 11-19-2014, 11:10 AM
 
Location: Independent Republic of Ballard
8,065 posts, read 8,324,048 times
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A consumer-oriented society is necessarily hedonistic, with credit more important than savings. A producer-oriented society, on the other hand, encourages delayed-gratification, with savings more important than credit.

If you want to be a radical in a society where most are pleasure seekers, be a reality-seeker...
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Old 11-20-2014, 10:21 AM
 
2,385 posts, read 1,422,896 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wxf848 View Post
I believe that doing things one enjoys is healthful. There's no reason not to do this. A focus on suffering or strict deprivation seems to me very similar to self-flagellation.

However, I believe that direct pursuit of joy and pleasure has the potential to be self-destructive. Further, I believe that the path to true fulfillment (to speak like a philosopher) is in living a good life and bringing goodness to the world. In my experience, when I've pursued joy and pleasure for their own sake, or to remediate pain, they flee from me. It seems like those experiences lack substance. I find a state of joy to be an overlay, an addition overlying the true state. Seeking joy itself is pursuit of an overlay without a true state. A comparison would be that it's like buying extra RAM without having a computer, or getting browser extensions without a browser. It can seem nice to have, because of what it can do, but without something to act on - a computer, a browser, or the living of life - it's empty.

True joy I've found is not acquired as a result of pursuit, but as a result of living. It isn't chased down; it's found along the way of living life. This way, you have a state, the condition of your life (which may be anything, including misery and despair; some of my greatest joy was found while I was in such a state) and then have joy and pleasure as added components.
You sir make a lot of sense!

I soon will be able to be hedonistic myself, and I think you have stated how to do it in a way that makes sense (to me). Thankfully in my case I think i've been blessed with a generally optimistic and cheerful demeanor which can't be bought. I know a person or two that has millions to do what they want with but yet still is miserable.
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Old 11-20-2014, 09:17 PM
 
Location: Missouri, USA
5,671 posts, read 4,338,888 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rishi85 View Post
What is wrong with being a hedonist? Why doesn't everyone, at the very least intelligent, rational people indulge in it often?

Why don't you lie next to a swimming pool in full, bright sunshine while getting an occasional massage at the end of every day? The ancients had mastered this art(public salt baths anyone).
Not that I've researched what hedonism really means...but the goal of achieving pleasure always seemed like a good idea to me. Pleasure achieved would seem to have long term if not permanent value, due to memories and also in another way because it will always have been pleasurable.

Hedonism does not appear too productive to society, because of what seem to be true statements like this:

The discipline of suffering, of great suffering — do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, persevering, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness — was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? (BGE 225; cf. BGE 270)
Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

But the achievement of pleasure, combined with the avoidance of unpleasant things like pain and sorrow seems like not a bad end goal for society. Some or all go through the suffering above to achieve the end goal of pleasure and avoidance of unpleasant emotions.

Of course, a monotonous gray dilution of emotions that comes from constant pleasure would be negative, and so some conflict is helpful to achieve the end goal of maximum pleasure and minimum negative emotions.

Humans also tend to desire a sense or purpose, so toss on a long term goal such as the upbringing of children or assisting humanity or striving for personal greatness and to be remembered, and you would seem to have a fine recipe for a good life.


But hedonism doesn't seem like a bad start anyway, particularly if you have do things to earn your pleasure. If you get it free because you just won the lottery and can afford your own servants to dance for you on command it would seem to have fewer advantages. If a society must earn pleasure hedonism could act as positive reinforcement for long term assisting ourselves as individuals and society.

If you don't know a better direction, hedonism sounds like a fine default setting. If we want to do something and cannot think of a good reason not to do it, we should always do it. If we don't want to do something and cannot think of a good reason to do it we should avoid doing it. That knowledge known to infants seems like it would be a fine place to start.
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Old 11-21-2014, 01:42 AM
 
4,078 posts, read 5,400,248 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nightlysparrow View Post
Exactly. Hedonism gets old, and the more you indulge, the faster you run through the pleasures, constantly looking for the next thing...and the next...

As the Hindus say, "Frosted cakes do not satisfy hunger."
Most excellent. I will have to keep that quote in my mental repertoire of most awesomest quotes!

Some people are hedonists and are able to live more in the moment than others. My only problem with hedonism is sometimes the lifestyle makes people unaware, because if they are constantly self-indulgent they are not being conscious of their surroundings and those around them. It's like watching a bunch of poker players getting drunk at the casino and driving home drunk, wrecklessly putting other people's lives in danger, having no regards for other human beings whatsoever. Because they are so in the moment, nothing outside of their world exists, except the realm of oneself. Gets old quick and the latent narcissism isn't very attractive.
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Old 11-23-2014, 06:01 AM
Status: "81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies" (set 1 day ago)
 
Location: Dallas, TX
5,789 posts, read 3,583,053 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kat949 View Post
Most excellent. I will have to keep that quote in my mental repertoire of most awesomest quotes!

Some people are hedonists and are able to live more in the moment than others. My only problem with hedonism is sometimes the lifestyle makes people unaware, because if they are constantly self-indulgent they are not being conscious of their surroundings and those around them. It's like watching a bunch of poker players getting drunk at the casino and driving home drunk, wrecklessly putting other people's lives in danger, having no regards for other human beings whatsoever. Because they are so in the moment, nothing outside of their world exists, except the realm of oneself. Gets old quick and the latent narcissism isn't very attractive.
Very sensible post. In practice, constant pleasure-indulgence does cause most people to be careless of others concerns. Pleasure-seeking doesn't have to lead to selfishiness, but this does seem the case in the majority of people. Also agreed on the latent narcissism.
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