What About Pleasure?
This is a philosophical essay based on my own experiences and reasoning. If you want to study the subject more thoroughly and from a scientific perspective, I suggest you look into the neurotransmitor known as Dopamine.
It seems to me that there are two kinds of pleasure which are easily confused when our wants and needs have gone haywire.
- Short-term pleasure (stp), which often leads to unpleasure in the long run. This is the kind of pleasure that one often submits to by choice and which often lead to addictions. Some examples are: smoking, drugs, junk food, toxic relationships, negative thought patterns, etc.
- Long-term pleasure (ltp), is something that only a very few will experience because ltp demands a different mindset than the one most of us have been taught by our current society/culture. The pursuit of this pleasure might require some changes that may not seem so pleasurable to begin with e.g. starting an exercise regimen, overcoming addictive/destructive habits, quitting a dead-end job, ending meaningless relationships, letting go of material belongings, moving, etc.
The ultimate pleasure which eventually encompasses both stp and ltp (although again, perhaps not initially), starts with the process of becoming a healthy, fit and ethical citizen of planet earth. In this state, our minds and bodies are working optimally and we are free from emotional baggage. We become a powerful, loving light at one with our enivorenment. We can then receive the great gifts of inner peace and mental strength which I like to call weapons of mass creation = WMC. Life becomes a joy and we radiate that joy to others.