Enjoy A “You-day-mon-I-am!” Inspiration

This is the world. The world is as it is. It is not as it isn’t. The world is an interconnected balancing act. Some people say humans came from the hand of God. Some say they came from aliens or from rocks, water and sunshine, but any way you slice it, it’s really quite amazing.

Cue music: Ravel, “Bolero”.

Like alternating current (AC) and direct current (dc), the world is positive and negative. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. One thing leads to another on the train of days we call life. We hope something incredible will happen—if we’re lucky, if we’re blessed, if a genie grants our wish—but magic doesn’t come from outside.

It is an interaction.

As Sir Isaac Newton observed, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” which means, “The bigger the push, the bigger the push back” (Propulsion). It’s like ping pong.

Everything is put into place and goes from there. There are good people. There are bad people. Sometimes good people are bad. Sometimes bad people are good. They’re inconsistent and situational even when they think they’re being spiritual (and/or reasonable).

The world is beautiful and horrible at intervals. We oscillate between positive and negative emotions every minute on our way to enjoying. Throughout history it hasn’t just been girls who wanna have fun. It’s everyone.

Everything humans do revolves around surviving and enjoying. They go together like bread and butter. It’s hard to enjoy if you’re not surviving and if you’re surviving without enjoying, what’s the point?

High-income countries have the highest prevalence of heavy episodic drinking (source).

That could explain why suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the world. Globally, one million people commit suicide each year (source). 44,193 Americans commit suicide each year and of those, many are drug and alcohol related (source). 

Party on, Dude.

The trick is to enjoy, but not all enjoyment is equal. Behind the eyes of another is a consciousness that is as you are. The workings of another’s mind is reflected in words and actions. If you’re not enjoying, you could do some rewiring. Neurons that “fire together, wire together” (source). Everyone’s brain is capable of physical change.

Neurons firing at the same time develop a physical connection. Through self-awareness and mindful practice you can structure yourself sane, sensible, and not prone to weeping.

We all want to experience as many joy filled experiences as we can. Las Vegas and Disneyland were built on that desire. It’s why we love eating doughnuts (as opposed to just looking at them).

Let’s get started.

In this age of entertainment, where people are immersed in computer generated fantasy or escape through drugs and alcohol, it’s interesting to see that people are still singing, “I can’t get no satisfaction. ‘Cause I try and I try and I try,” like Mick Jagger (“Satisfaction”).

Why is there no satisfaction?

Everyone is searching for something but what that “something” is is sometimes uncertain. Watch reality TV and you’ll see how messed up people can be. It’s as if everyone should be assigned a psychologist at birth to guide them through life.

The ancient Greeks proposed two opposing philosophical traditions for how to find happiness. Aristotle (384-322 BC) called them: (1) eudaimonia (you-day-monia)—right action leading to “well-being” and the “good life,” and (2) hedonic enjoyment—the pursuit of pleasure from sensual self-indulgence.

Eudiamonia combines “eu” meaning “good” and “daimon” meaning “spirit” (“god” or “godlike”). Eudiamonia literally means “having a good guardian spirit”.

Socrates’ daimon.

In psychology daimonic refers to one’s drive towards individuation—the things that distinguish you from everybody else.

Eudiamonia asks you to live in accordance with your daimon or “true self” and hedonism asks you to enjoy an experience where you believe you’re getting what you want and feel the pleasant affects of that belief (source).

But ideas change over time. Daemonic is now associated with a fiend motivated by a spiritual force that is evil, but daimonia is really about a feeling of unrest that forces you into an unknown that leads you to “self-destruction and/or self-discovery” (source).

In “Two Conceptions of Happiness…” psychologist Alan S. Waterman writes, “The daimon is an ideal in the sense of being an excellence, a perfection toward which one strives and, hence, it can give meaning and direction to one’s life” (p. 678).

Socrates and Plato thought human beings wanted eudaimonia more than anything and Aristotle—that eudimoniac!—rejected hedonism saying, “The many, the most vulgar, seemingly conceive the good and happiness as pleasure… they appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals” (Aristotle, 1985, p. 7).

But Epicurus—the hedonist who was like Jesus (Christians and Epicureans shared social practices)—put the two opposites together. He didn’t advocate pursuing any and every pleasure. He identified eudaimonia (the flourishing life) with the life of pleasure and freedom from distress (Eudaimonia).

To shape a state of mind that is eudaimonic, here’s what to do:

First, cultivate virtue through: (1) apatheia (literally “being without passions” like a stoic) and (2) ataraxia (literally being “without trouble” or “tranquillity” like a hedonist). Second, stop thinking like a critic. Third, sing, “Chh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uh. In the summertime, when the weather is hot. You can stretch right up and touch the sky” (“In the Summertime”).

The world—Reality—is a hand in your face waving, “Hey Dude! Wake up Dude! (Reality sounds a lot like Keanu Reeves). “See that sky? That’s me! See those trees? That’s me too, Dude! If you see the world, you’re in the world. You’re the world seeing itself! WHOA! That’s heavy, Dude.”

Reality answers every question. It speaks every minute. Even when you’re sleeping, reality sleeps with you. The wheels are in motion—spinning, spinning.

Reality says, “Feel the grass under your feet. Incredible, right? The reality of your feet and grass feeling is reality happening. You don’t have to believe there are flowers. There are flowers! There are hummingbirds, rhinoceros, butterflies and robins fluffing feathers under sprinklers.” 

But like in dream where all the roads are congested as you choke on exhaust feeling “stuck in the middle” on this “eve of destruction”, is there anything you can do? Of course there is!

Do nothing.

It’s an effortless Chinese wu wei non-doing in harmony kind of thing. Practice not doing and enjoy yourself in not so doing. It doesn’t mean you’re a slug. It  means to sing, “Don’t worry about a thing because everything’s gonna be all right” (“Don’t Worry About A Thing”). Let muscular tension go. Relax and let time pass (see also: Enjoyment and Enlightenment and A New Way of Looking).

Just duck it. Duck it all anyway. Like a duck in a pond, float without purpose or boredom. Let your face go slack like an idiot and enjoy it. Float with euphoria and swim in living. The whole environment is the duck that’s in it.

“Quack. Quack.”

Feel aware of yourself feeling aware in the world you’re in and like Daniel Boone sing, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s a beautiful day” (“Beautiful Sunday”).

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy.

References

Aristotle. (1985). Nicomachean ethics. (T. Irwin, Trans.). Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett.

Waterman, A. S. (1990). Personal expressiveness: Philosophical and
psychological foundations. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 11,47-74.

Hedonism, Selfishness And A Womb With A View

When it comes to pleasure of the simple sort that is neither decadent nor salacious, there are two kinds of people. You have people who do not (and will not) enjoy anything (no matter what) and you have people for whom personal pleasure is the only thing that matters even if their enjoyment is at the expense of another.

Most people fall somewhere in-between. This is called hedonism–from the Greek word “hedone” meaning “pleasure.” Most people associate hedonism with narcissism and extreme self-involvement, but that is misguided.

Hedonism isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Enjoying a cup of tea after you rescue 20 puppies from a terrible master is an example of hedonism.

According to science it’s really quite simple: to enjoy life all you have to do is create the mood for it and it is you yourself who creates your mood. Research shows that your brain sends “chemical neurotransmitters to tell you your mood” (source).

It’s all about serotonin and dopamine. 

Serotonin is a “neurotransmitter of pleasure and enjoyment” (source) and to get serotonin it’s as simple as going for a walk (source).

Dopamine is “in the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment” (Psychologist World) and to get dopamine all you have to do is: 1) eat right, 2) sleep well and 3) move that body! (wikiHow).

Mungo Jerry explains: “We’re no threat, people. We’re not dirty, we’re not mean. We love everybody but we do as we please. When the weather’s fine, we go fishin’ or go swimmin’ in the sea. We’re always happy. Life’s for livin’ yeah, that’s our philosophy”  In the Summertime. 

Just another day.

Preacher says: “Hedonism is narcissism. A hedonist is one who lives a self-dominated and self-focused life. A hedonist is committed to satisfy, by all means, the lusts, urges, and appetites of his sinful nature” (Hedonism: A Heart Problem).

But the original Greek meaning of hedonist is just “pleasure, delight, enjoyment” (Etymology Dictionary).

The trouble isn’t with “pleasure, delight or enjoyment.” The trouble is with human beings.

No matter how incredible an experience is, you will still return to how happy you normally feel.

That’s the hedonic treadmill.

“Help!” shouts Bob. See treadmill scene from Lost In Translation.

“Expectations and desires rise in tandem” (Wikipedia).

Bootlegger Nucky Thompson in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014) looks back on his life and explains, “The first time I got a nickel tip, I thought the world is great. . . . But a dime would be better. Then I wanted a quarter.”

That’s the treadmill.

Hedonism holds that things are good as long as they are pleasant, and bad as long as they are painful. From the moment of birth, the good for each individual is that person’s pleasure. If you look back on your life and deem it a good one, then you yourself will have enjoyed it, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t pooh, pigs and wind!
Philosopher Robert Nozick (1938-2002) posed the following thought experiment. Imagine scientists have a machine – picture the Matrix or virtual reality – that simulates real life while guaranteeing only pleasurable experiences, never pain. The catch is, you have to leave reality behind.

Nozick asks, “If you were given the choice to sign up for that kind of existence, would you?”

We may not get what we enjoy. We may sacrifice freedom to look after babies, do jobs we don’t like or go to parties and funerals no matter what we’d rather be doing.

“You know, we’re living in a SOCIETY!” shouts George (see video clip)

For 300 years ancient Epicureans emphasized moderation over mindless hedonism because extravagant pleasures make us their slaves. Happiness takes courage, moderation, and other virtues (IEP).

“Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet” (Epicurus’s Letter to Menoeceus).

Bill Murray said, “The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself” (Bill Murray’s Advice).

In the last analysis what makes life worth living is your enjoyment of it.

Joey from “Friends” (1994-2004) nailed it. “Look,” he said, “there’s no unselfish good deed… That’s because all people are selfish… selfless good deeds don’t exist!” (see video clip).

That’s psychological egoism. It says we’re always motivated by self-interest (IEP). The question is: Who is this self that is so self-interested?

The obvious answer is: I’m so-and-so; I like such-and-such; I hate this-and-that. But could this be a limited self-interested perspective?

When someone says, “My temper got the better of me. I didn’t mean it,” or “My lust got the better of me. I couldn’t help it,” who is doing that? who is that I? (What do you think?)

Is it: A) What you do for enjoyment and/or employment? or *B) Who you think you are when you’re aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it? *Note: If you picked B), you may be in a process of self transformation.

Delight in that happy feeling.

In “The Enormous Womb” (1941) Henry Miller wrote, “As far as I can make out, there is never anything but womb. First and last there is the womb of Nature; then there is the mother’s womb; and finally there is the womb in which we have our life and being and which we call the world. It is the failure to recognize the world as womb which is the cause of our misery” (p. 94).

Henry Miller says there are people alive and moving who live in bliss. Such people are less unconscious. They’re different because of their attitude. They accept the world as womb, not tomb. They don’t regret what’s past or fear what’s coming. They live in a state of awareness without fear simply by adopting an attitude — and so can you.

Now… go! Relax and be happy in your relaxing.

Wisdom Enjoyment

Enjoyment is a kind of longing. We long to enjoy but life gets in the way; yet life – at least, the bits we like – is the enjoyment we crave. We want to feel the freedom of enjoyment, but there’s stuff to do and not enough time. We feel the need to win the lottery but that’s a fool’s game or as Seneca (Stoic philosopher, 54 BC – 39 AD) put it, “A fortune is great slavery.” He also said, “A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature,” but… anyway…

Our longing grows until enjoyment becomes a fantasy unrealisable. We see the rich seemingly enjoying themselves and want to be one of them. We forget how real enjoyment – like the kind we felt as kids – feels. A kid doesn’t need millions of dollars. She enjoy listening to seashells. She doesn’t know the waves she hears is ambient noise coupled with imagination.

Enjoyment is like that. It’s in ourselves. We get confused and try to fill the enjoyment void with things unwise.

We think, “If only I had some time to just sit, outside, comfortably, with a cup of coffee and a book,” or, “if only I wasn’t so bored,” or, “if only I could go for a walk and feel peaceful and not bugged by the things I have to do.”

It’s like that song chugging along with the words, “Don’t know why I have to work. Don’t know why I can’t play. Turn me off. Turn me out. But don’t turn me away. Save Me a Place” (Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac, 1979).

How does a person who longs for enjoyment (and love, peace, contentment, kindness, humour, ecstasy and all the other happy emotions wrapped into one) ever experience enjoyment when the world seems bent towards making us feel the opposite?

The daily grind of work, boredom and problems makes enjoyment incidental or non-existent. If you long for enjoyment, how can you get it when there’s all this other @#$%… stuff to deal with?

One word: Discipline.

It isn’t the world that’s a problem. It’s you. It takes a few deep breaths and a disciplined surrender to what is. Stop resisting and enjoy yourself without expectation. Good or bad – it’s all good.

Things are rarely the way you want them to be. Enjoyment takes will-power and courage. It takes initiative and imagination. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are” (The Social Contract, 1762).

Rousseau in 1753. He freely expressed emotions, enjoyed solitary walks and longed to understand himself.

Say out loud to yourself, “Let go,” and then, “Enjoy!” Let “Relax!” be your battle cry! Who cares if people think you’re crazy?

Enjoyment is in your eyes. Fling open your senses. If you can do that, you are a philosopher of enjoyment. You are an intellectual yokel. You can gape freely at this weird and wonderful world as sensible people take it all for granted.

Here we are, living on a ball of rock spinning around an immense sphere of fire as organisms go through creature rearrangement, mutual slaughter and flourish by chewing each other up.

Nothing strange about that.

We struggle to find our way. Think about wisdom. It nudges you closer to it. Consider your life: your decisions. your values, your shortcomings. Wisdom understands the context of who you are, where you are and what is prudent to do. Enjoyment enjoys. It’s a matter of wise choices. Think big picture and notice little things.

Wise choices combine facts about reality and human nature with awareness of culture, history and the context of your life span. Wisdom understands values and priorities. It projects insight, good judgement and emotional regulation.

A philosopher of enjoyment memorizes wise sayings like: “Ageing can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it” (Clint Eastwood); “neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy” (Voltaire); “one should eat to live, not live to eat” (Cicero); “Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things” (Small). Ultimately, wisdom is to enjoyment what red is to a tomato.

Put a light bulb in your pocket. Pull it out. Hold it over your head and say, “I have an idea!”

Enjoy yourself. What have you got to lose?