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I understand how hedonism could seem appealing. But when I consider my own life experiences, I find that the happiest people I know are all motivated by some "h
by kcorbitt 9y ago
I understand how hedonism could seem appealing. But when I consider my own life experiences, I find that the happiest people I know are all motivated by some "higher calling," although the callings in question vary widely, and may seem distasteful or simply trivial to a third party. By contrast, I don't know that I've ever met someone who pursued pleasure for pleasure's sake and felt truly satisfied with their life. Others may have different experiences, so take from that what you will.
- true_religion 9y agoWould you characterize people with a higher calling as content or actually visibly happy each and every day?
- jasikpark 9y agoI would call them alive. They might not be happy everyday. There is always time to be sad, and to be angry, and to just stare into the void and realize how screwed up life is sometimes, but I would say that if you have a higher calling, it's much easier to be happy in a less hedonistic way. Actually: yeah, I just basically described contentedness. Though there is definitely a difference between contentedness and complacency.
- raducu 9y agoNobody is happy each and every day, that's impossible given human nature. There are however people who are satisfied and content with their life almost every day.
- empath75 9y agoIf people are following the 'higher calling' because that makes them happy, then that is hedonism.
- badosu 9y agoWell, that makes almost everything humans do hedonic, doesn't it. Happiness in this case probably comprises of a state of mind different of perceptual pleasure.
- pasquinelli 9y agoEpicurus advocated learning as the best form of pleasure because you can't do it to excess very easily like you can with things like eating, drinking, etc. The various helenistic schools of philosophy were all searching for what constituted virtue. They were quite explicitly after what was good about life and how to organize life around that. The fact you can understand every every human motivation in hedonistic terms is no coincidence; it's the justification for the philosophy, the reason there was a school of hedonism.
- chibolo 9y ago"Hedonic" and Hedonism should be defined differently. The semi-last paragraph gives a good point to what Hedonism is. "That is why the real Epicurus – in contrast to the crude sybarite invented by his detractors – denounced the rapidly rotting fruits of dissipation and excess. The constant pursuit of intense pleasures will in fact backfire, according to Epicurus, because it leads to the psychological hell of enslavement to unsatisfiable appetites. The would-be hedonist must take care to ensure that the pain of overreaching desire does not ruin his peace of mind and thereby defeat his original aim of securing a balance of pleasure over pain."
- RodericDay 9y agoNo, not really. Hedonism refers to pursuing pleasures such as money, sex, food, luxury. Unless you want to play fast and loose with terms, an achievement such as becoming a veterinarian or winning a tennis championship or breaking a videogame speedrun record doesn't qualify. Some words are tricky to fully define outside any ambiguity. Love and Game are good examples.
- coldtea 9y agoNot really. The same circular reasoning can be used to make altruism selfish, etc. It makes far more sense to define those things by their external manifestations rather than by some final (and worse, sometimes even subconscious) motive.
- ziikutv 9y agoAgreed. For me, I noticed that I am always seeking for an answer. A magical key that will unlock everything lol. I do not mean from a religious POV. I just mean things like..if I do X, Y will happen which will lead to Z, so on and so forth. Related to this: Instead of Hendonism, I am getting into Stoicism; of course adapting it to 'modern day'.
- ci5er 9y agoEither I have mis-read stoicism, or you have, or I misunderstand you, or a combination of the above.
- ziikutv 9y agoEdited paragraph. Those were two separate topics.
- ci5er 9y agoWell, then, post-edit, good on you, mate. Still sounds like you might be getting a bit mystical with both the old and the new. You might want to play around with extreme spiritual skepticism to get your grounding before launching off with any sort of practice with any expectations. But, you know, hey! YMMV.
- che_shirecat 9y agothere's no seeking for an answer in stoicism. the answer is already there, both within and in nature, revealed day by day through living a virtuous life. unrelated - you're using semicolons incorrectly.
- ziikutv 9y agoTwo unrelated paragraphs :).
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- peterwwillis 9y agoMost of us probably relate to the experiences of the people we are around the most. I've never met anyone who has told me they felt truly satisfied with their life, and I know I will never be. I thought that was one of life's virtues... What good is a cup running over if you never drink from it? And if you drink, is it still full? My point is, I need a glass of wine...
- coldtea 9y ago>But when I consider my own life experiences, I find that the happiest people I know are all motivated by some "higher calling," although the callings in question vary widely, That's true. Hedonism is a treadmill (no pun intended) like most other traps. Heroin users are also hedonists...
- freeflight 9y agoWhile I agree that growth can happen trough struggle (which does not equate suffering!), I have a very hard time believing that most living things are actively looking for suffering or pain. What living things do you know that go actively out of their way to experience pain and suffering? Such a behavior would be highly disadvantageous to any species and would run counter to the most basic instincts of all things living. We have pain receptors for a reason, that reason ain't that we just gotta learn to "enjoy the pain". As such I would argue that all living things live their lives on a rather hedonistic basis. Equally, it could be argued that if "having a calling" makes you "suffer less", because you've found a purpose for your life while a lack of purpose can lead to suffering, then having a calling might just as well be considered a hedonistic lifestyle choice. The notion that pain and suffering are something that needs to happen to "pull trough" is trough and trough a human invention among the same lines as proper "working virtues".
- pjc50 9y ago"Through" and "trough" are different words.
- sjcsjc 9y agoSince the misspelling was repeated, this could actually be a helpful comment.
- jbrown 9y agoI've heard an accent that has trouble pronouncing the English "th" sound, instead approximating it with more of a "t" sound that misses the tongue thrust. Maybe that is what's happening here?
- freeflight 9y agoSorry about that, I'm not a native speaker so I sometimes confuse words that sound similar. Grammarly is usually pretty good about pointing stuff like that out, sadly it failed me this time.
- literallycancer 9y ago
- lmm 9y agoI think it's possible to make mistakes in both directions. Certainly in my own life I used to be far too concerned about trying to do something for the ages; adopting the Epicurian attitude has made me a lot happier. (I still spend time helping others, because that's a satisfying thing to do in itself, but I've stopped trying to change the world).
- Retric 9y agoHedonism like anything else can be done poorly. The first and most important step is to optimize for what you actually enjoy and not just use the greedy algorithm of what feels good this second. The goal is to align effort with actual reward and not maximize meaningless numbers like total income. Do you enjoy taking a lazy morning with 30 minutes of quiet reflection each day? Great, but don't assume that means you would be happy maximizing that and living in a monistic life. The cost benefit on drugs is really complex for example, but so is having a committed relationship, or any other major life choice. That does not mean you should ignore the actual complexity of life, rather you should actually consider the cost benefits of where you live, what you do etc etc.
- jbrown 9y agoYou make a very good point. I think my observations are pretty similar to yours. My solution is to expand from the hedonistic goal of maximizing one's own pleasure, to the larger goal of maximizing the total amount of happiness in the world.