Is the (exaggerated) pursuit of pleasure ironically amplifying misery?

I do often think that more actually means less.
What are we here for as Human Beings – just to aquire more goods and things?
To find these things at the expense of having any real freedom? We become wage slaves working when we hate our work – we are there simply to pay for all the things we dont really need.
Hypnotised by adverts who persuade us that buy, buy, buy
will make us happy.

To even debate the fruitful nature or futility of the pursuit of pleasure would take all the fun out of it for those of us on our hedonic treadmills!! Where is my water bottle???

@mattbrowne there are so many variables that can affect your question. but if you look at our society as a whole, we’re taught that we have to have all our wishes gratified on the instant. We think we should not have to suffer even for a moment, as if suffering were in and of itself a bad thing. Then we’re shown over and over again the things after which we should be striving as if they have some meaning in our lives, or as if they are what gives our lives meaning.
If you look at the commercials on television, in magazines, the internet and radio, you can see what motivates us are the very basest of human biology. Sex. And not just sex, but sex at its lowest possible incarnation; the need to attract as many as possible of the opposite (or not) sex. Not for any good reason, we just need to be “desired” sexually. We overlook completely what others really have to offer us as people because we’re taught that people have no value unless they are physically attractive, or at least powerful or wealthy. Yep. We’re taught that lack of looks can be forgive in the person can “do something” for us. Look a Hugh Heffner. Would those empty headed bimbos be with him if he couldn’t “launch” their careers? Never minid what those careers might entail, basically being noticed and nailed by other, less wrinkly powerful men.
What else? Eating, and snobbery. Oh god, I’m getting way into this and I dodn’t want to .
@mattbrowne, I drew a parallel between our society and that of Rome earlier today. I hold to that, but I worked last night and I have to get some sleep. I’m keeping an eye on this thread. it’s a good, relevant question. I wish it would be asked by more people, but I fear it requires a degree of introspection that is lacking in the majority of us.
The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates

@Trillian – I admit it’s a complex question. Let us try!

The proposition that suffering comes from desire is many thousands of years old, and is thoroughly dissected in the Vedic scriptures.

It could be. Many people who tend to “hedonistic” lifestyles are impulsive, manic, addicts of adrenaline and it takes more stimuli to get them to feel pleasure others come to more easily. Now to probe the group of hedonists and deem which are that way due to endured miseries or by chemical make up.

I know that when I’m writing in my gratitude journal daily it does make me see that I am plentiful and I do not need anything more than I have in this very moment… I’m a very grateful person. Because right now I’m ok… and in the next moment.. now…. I’m still ok.

This doesn’t stop me thinking about the journey of my life and where I want to be in the future, what I want for myself and my son. I think desire is an important if not integral part of happiness but I think we have to see the flow of life whilst feeling the waves beneath us.

I think when you let where you want to be take over your present happiness that’s where the misery gets created and eventually amplified. I don’t think choice overload can be solely blamed for more depression. Having the choices available give us freedom. For example, I’m a single parent with “little” money and categorized all too often as probably one of societies lost causes…. However, because the state makes the funding available for me to study whatever course I want to do and provide me with childcare in order that I can take the time to do it, I have infinite possibilities open to me if i choose to look at them and make decisions and move forward… I could of course choose not to do anything else but live off state benefits for the rest of my life but that wouldn’t make me happy.

I have evaluated what is more important to me and I am finding the balance between love, family life, work, studying, fun, spirituality, money, material goods, etc. I know where I am now and I’m happy with that (in this moment!). I know what I will be doing tomorrow and what I will have tomorrow, to a certain degree. And I know what I want to have in ten years time, which may or may not occur… it may change…

But right now I have my son, good family, food, a warm house, water, love and gratitude that I’m alive. That’s a lot more than some people have at the moment. I think we do need to see things in perspective and be grateful.

Choice is not where the problem lies, it’s in our inability to see that we already have been given the biggest desire we could possibly want; to live.

Material things and physical pleasures only lead to an addictive spiral, you can never get enough and you debase yourself at each step of the way. I think the Amish have a good point when they say “enough”, there is more than this. Physical pleasure and possessions beyond “enough” are a form of addiction. Happiness is found in a middle path of “enough” and seeking fulfillment via other channels.

@lynneblundell makes a really good point about perspective. So does @stranger_in_a_strange_land regarding the word “enough”. I’m not so sure about the categorization of manic, adrenaline junkies. I think the people who are dissatisfied with their lives because of artificially induced desires and values is much
more broad, cutting across all demographic categories and income brackets.
Dangit Matt. I mentioned desensitization in another thread. That’s what we are. And we can’t help it. We are become so in self defense to the continual bombardment to which we are subjected every day. Images are become surreal, and though we seem to feel our emotions deeply I feel that many are manufactured. We’re able to “switch” off and move on the the next thing relatively quickly.
For a random example, the image that we’ve all seen countless times of the Vietnam conflict with the man carrying the dead child. What do we feel? Sadness? Anger? What should one feel at the sight of a life violently cut short? How did the child die? We never know, do we. Or precious few of us know, I guess. How long do we feel that emotion? Because here’s another commercial with a big eyed child looking out at us, starving somewhere else in the world? Our compassion is stirred again. But for how long? Here’s another commercial with a beaten, shaking dog, and a cat who has been hit, with Sarah MgLaughlin (Spelling?) singing and making your throat hurt with the sadness. So we finally cut ourselves off in self defense at the sheer VOLUME of images. A master of psychology could have predicted it.
Then we are shown things and told that our lives suck on toast but will be better with these. And we’re shown so many things, if one doesn’t appeal, we’re sure to have something else that will. We’ll just keep trying. And in the organizational language of corporate America, it has become accepted. The same way we’ve accepted the standard of beauty that’s been imposed on us, and we’ve accepted the standard of what we admire from a monetary standpoint.
We have been told that actors, sports players, anyone who is “famous” is better than we are, and have much more interesting lives than we do. Far too many people said “Yes, this is so.” Then came the marketing executives who said; “They believe it, so we can sell them all this stuff. They’ll want it and they’ll keep buying it. If it isn’t selling, get one of these people to endorse it, they’ll buy it then.”
“You have air time? Put idiots with cameras and microphones out there, waiting to watch these people walk from their cars into some place, act like their clothes are better and have something profound to say. People will watch, AND buy the products! Two birds with one stone!”

Dammit Matt! It really is a complex issue, and the more I write, the more factors I think about. I have to go get coffee and buy a water pipe so I can smoke my Calea leaf. I’m watching you! Let me leave you with a quote from Will Smith. (I thought it was Eddie Murphy, but when I googled it to get the exact quote, it said Will Smith. Hmmm)
“Too many people are spending money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”

People who are taught to measure self-worth in terms of material possessions, access to the trappings of success and evaluate their happiness against these artificial and unrealistic standards are prone to lower self-esteem and self-efficacy (competence), lower expectations of future success as so narrowly measured lead to a sense of failure, pessimism and depression.

Their faulty cognitions produce and sustain serious depressive experiences and the effects among these believes, attitudes, expectations and depression become a vicious self-perpetuating cycle. Cognitive behavioral approached to depression work to break down these maladaptive connections.

Yes, it’s very cyclical. One generation will work hard and develop a strong ‘work ethic’ but the next generation will follow the pendulum the other way. Then, like pendulums always do, there will be a swing in the other direction. There is no ‘real’ pendulum, of course, but the description helps to illustrate the idea. The absence of a work ethic leads to the ‘hedonistic’ scenario.

If enough people are saying “we don’t need more than what’s enough and this even makes us feel better” shouldn’t this solve many of our problems? Healthier people. Happier people. Fewer financial crises. Reduced inequalities between rich and poor states as well as between rich and poor countries. As a voluntary commitment. We have the freedom to do it or not to do it. What do you think about approaches like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments for example?

Would such a somewhat reduced pursuit of pleasure ironically curtail misery?

@YARNLADY I think you’re right, though your timeline may be a bit off, I think the work ethic may take longer than one generation. Either way, do you not feel that part of the trouble is arisen from the people themselves who have “made it” and then want to “give” their kids the things and opportunities they didn’t have? I think that this is a huge part of the issue. Forgetting that adversity is what helps us to grow, they give their kids everything they didn’t have and the kids grow up with no sense of ever having had to do without, entitlement issues, and inappropriate feelings of “superiority” over others who have not. I’m oversimplifying a bit for the sake of brevity, but that’s it in a nutshell.
How many over-privleged (spelling) kids do we see on the news and television misbehaving and…what’s a good phrase….conspicuous consumption maybe. Growing up with a silver spoon in one mouth (or nose) is frequently a precursor for a lifetime of bad habits, bad behaviour that goes unchecked a lot because there is a wealthy relative keeping them from paying for their conduct. Again, an oversimplification and I don’t have numbers to back this up, it just seems that way to me. I know that D. Trumps kids work in the business, but I think they’re in the minority, and he’s Nouveau Riche anyway, right? Do you think they’ll teach a solid work ethic to their kids?

@mattbrowne in my experience, being able to adopt an attitude of “good enough” (both in the accumulation of things and in my actions) requires a sense of ownership and transparent evaluation of my personal intentions and behaviors. And, I do think such conscientiousness can play a part in the lessening of misery. I like the idea of equalization payment, I only wish I had the brain power to understand it’s feasibility.

@initial question:

Sometimes the pleasure I seek (even without intending to) makes me a complicit part of global hardships. We only need to talk about something as simple as chocolate to see how individual desires (even with moderate or “enough” consumption) can gather into a collective that drives hardship for others. Knowing that my pursuit of pleasure can sometimes make me culpable (if even in a small way) in the suffering of others leaves me wanting to be a consumer who not only monitors whether what I have is good enough but also whether what I call enough is thoughtfully acquired. (of course, in this I can only do my best which leaves me spinning in the question of “is my best good enough?”)

Moving closer to home, the intention behind and the sort of pleasure that I seek can not only affect the quality of my life but the quality of the lives of those around me.

Being transparent here, I sometimes seek out the behaviors and comforts of pleasure to avoid and numb all manner of things, i.e. pleasure can allow me to avoid the aches of loneliness and the restlessness of boredom. The tools of my pleasure can include food, materialism, substance abuse, and sexual activity. When I am lost in the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of avoidance it leads to denial, self-debasement, disregard of my loved ones, and away from being a positive part of global humanity. I suspect that our culture is filled with many who approach pleasure in the same manner. To ask people to voluntarily dig themselves out of such a trough, dug deep after many years of pain “denial”, in order to aid the betterment of others is no small thing. I say this understanding how stubbornly I can cling to the pleasures of this world, even on a good day!.

When the intention behind my pursuit of pleasure is to be awake to life, myself, and others, then pleasure becomes something life giving and expansive. The ironic thing being the tools of such authentic pleasure sometimes include food, possessions, alcohol, and sexual expression. Often, when I approach pleasure out of a sense of being awake, it expands to the aesthetics of my environment, art, nature, and community. A balanced pursuit of pleasure does make the world and my life a better place.

oops… i meant to use this as my chocolate link!

@Trillian You analysis is along the same lines of my thinking. However, I don’t think the work ethic is a matter of ‘teaching our kids’ because our parents learned it through necessity. In the 1960’s there were a lot of us who tried to opt out of the upwardly mobile consumer class, but in the long run, it didn’t work for us or our children. Currently, I place the blame entirely on advertising, which has become so wide spread that people have become unthinking consumers practically against their will with little or no understanding of the consequences.

When I go to the store, I see row after row of supposed ‘choices’ with the only difference being the color of the wrapper. I have never succumbed to the cosmetic industry insistance that I paint up my face, or draw a sharp piece of steel over my soft furry body. It’s just not my style. I can’t see how having ‘clean shaven legs’ is more important than feeding thousands of starving people.

@Trillian – I think we’ve got defense mechanisms against continual bombardment. For example many years ago I decided to no longer watch cheap commercials at all or even more expensive, good commercials no more than twice. There’s almost no need to watch private tv channels. Renting movies or series on DVD cost 1–2 euros. News programs that get interrupted by commercials can be switched to mute with a single push of a button on the remote control which is exactly what I do. There’s always a book right next to me. I read about 60–70 books a year.

I think commercials cause a lot of harm in children giving them idea they need this and that while it actually far more interesting to watch ants crawling around in a forest or a man-made park. Celebrity hype is equally mind-numbing promoting the illusion of perfection.

We need strategies to better fight useless attention grabbers.

I love the Will Smith quote.

Here’s a reading tip on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005696/

I am not sure if it is the pursuit of pleasure that is the problem, or rather misunderstanding of pleasure, or mistaking pleasure with happiness, or something such. But basically, yea, I think there’s something in the idea that the “hedonism treadmill” (nice expression) is to blame for increasing depression. (Not that I think any one explanation alone is enough to explain what I call the current madness.)

Not amplifying it so much as creating it. The perpetuation of this flawed idea that no one should suffer in any way and only have fun and pursue self-satisfying activities in increasingly new and overblown ways, and only do things that cater to one’s own happiness to the detriment of other things and beings is at the very root of much of the dissatisfaction in society today…

and as far as Amish not having as many cases of “depression,” a problematic term in modern times itself, it has less to do with their lack of pursuit of pleasure than in how they do spend their days: with physical and handiwork, which leaves little time to pay heed to someone who’s telling you that if you are not insanely happy most of the time then something must be wrong with you!