We Don’t Want Pleasure; We Just Want the Pain to End
Pleasure. We’re all after it in some way or another. Some limit themselves or are limited to simple pleasures. Others live lavishly, spending fortunes indulging in expensive delights just to experience a bit of satisfaction – and our consumerist culture encourages this. And thus, we’ve come to believe we need pleasure to feel good (whatever it may be that does the job).
Moreover, many people think that pleasure is where happiness lies and that satisfaction isn’t possible without it. So, we generally see pleasure as the source of our joy and the absence of pleasure as the cause of dissatisfaction. When equating the acquirement of pleasure with happiness, we logically conclude that the more pleasure we engage in, the more satisfied we feel. But, as we all experience, this isn’t the case. Pleasure doesn’t consistently deliver what it promises, so its results are erratic. What provided us satisfaction in one moment does not in another.
How can a luxurious vacation in a tropical paradise make us happy the first and second time, but not so much the third time? It’s because pleasure and happiness aren’t the same. Hence, could it be that our culture of consumerism has it all wrong? Could it be that our ongoing pursuits of pleasure send us in the wrong direction? Do we want what we want or not? And, if not, does wanting the things we don’t want remove us further from what we actually want?
We burn with desire. Sometimes, it makes us crazy, and we go to extremes to fulfill it. And, looking at humanity, it looks like most of us just cannot help it; the appearance of desires seems inherent to our natural existence. The satisfaction of our desires is short-lived: when we’ve satisfied one, another takes its place, as concluded by Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer saw the fulfillment of desire as a negative experience, not a positive one.
I quote: “I have reminded the reader that every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence. It follows, therefore, that the happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering - from positive evil.” End quote. The pessimistic German philosopher observed that an underlying, irrational impulse causes a senseless striving in people.
He believed that this will (or will-to-live) is the foundation of our instinctual drives. Moreover, he considered it the basis of existence. Most of our desires stem from our will to live, such as our appetite for bodily pleasures and our inclination to reproduce and preserve ourselves. But, according to Schopenhauer, this ‘will’ causes us to suffer as we spend our lives extinguishing fires while new ones keep appearing to no end. Like the condemned king Sisyphus, we push rocks uphill only for them to roll down again.
The more companies convince us that we need the stuff they sell, the more the fire within us begins to rage. The “compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy,” as Schopenhauer described a human being, only becomes more robust and thus harder to appease. As we were already inherently burdened with incessant dissatisfaction, the idea that we need even more only deepens our sense of lack. It becomes increasingly challenging to reach what Schopenhauer called to be “free from positive evil.”
It takes higher salaries, more growth in our investments, and more exhausting days of work to purchase satisfaction, which consumerism essentially is: the collective preoccupation with buying consumer goods to feel satisfied – to experience “freedom from pain:” ‘pain’ being the positive element of existence. Consumerism makes us believe it provides us with a path to happiness, but in reality, it does the opposite: it makes happiness harder to reach. The more we answer to our desires, the stronger they eventually return, as their flames grow bigger, making it harder to put them out.
Most of us are stuck in the process of putting out those flames just for them to reappear. Consumerism praises the great fires of craving, presenting them as a meaning of life. So, it’s preferable to want things, consume, and dream about having expensive things. And thus, companies arouse those desires, those dreams, the bigger, the better, while offering countless pleasures to fulfill them. They light us on fire and then sell us water to quench the blaze.
Buddhist monk Ajahn Sona argued that the problem with desire, with wanting and craving, is that as soon as we experience it, we’re in debt. There’s a sense of lack. I quote: “The moment you want something is the moment you experience the lack of it. You just put yourself in debt. Now, some of you have managed to get out of debt, and what does it feel like when you finally pay off your credit cards, when you finally pay off that mortgage? Lots of people celebrate. It’s a feeling of freedom.” End quote.
Experiencing the lack of something is not a pleasurable experience, as it disturbs our contentment and inner peace. Before we wanted something, we were content. But when ‘wanting’ came into existence, this contentment vanished and would only return if our desire ceased. As long as this desire persists, we experience debt; we have some bills left to pay before we can feel happy again.
The usual solution for this experience is to get what we want. If we want that new phone, we get it. If we want that larger house, we buy it. If we want a specific kind of food, we order it. But, what do we actually want? Do we want the phone? Or do we want the burning desire – the pain of it – to end? Do we want the larger house? Or do we want to re-experience our contentment before the desire for this house arose? Do we want a specific kind of food? Or do we want our cravings for it to cease so we feel satisfied?
It seems that we don’t want what we want. We don’t want the phone, the larger house, or the food in themselves. We want what they provide. More specifically: we want them to release us from the pain of not having them. That’s why as soon as we get what we want, the desire for it diminishes. It becomes normal, and often we don’t even want it anymore, and it becomes a burden.
But, we’re always looking for satisfaction, which is what we ultimately want, so it seems. Satisfaction (so argues Schopenhauer) isn’t a positive experience but a negative one. I quote: “It is the good which is negative; in other words, happiness and satisfaction always imply some desire fulfilled, some state of pain brought to an end.” End quote. Thus, we don’t want pleasure; we just want the pain to end.
Current rampant consumerism is a tragedy. It promises us happiness but only decreases the odds of experiencing it. It leads to environmental problems, moral degradation, stress, unhappiness, debt, dissatisfaction, and mental issues. It evokes the exact thing that makes us miserable: the experience of lack, the feeling of debt, the pain of craving. But how can we position ourselves in a society that encourages the flames of desire and, of course, wants us to extinguish these flames through consumption?
We have several options. First of all, we could engage in consumerism, even though this probably won’t provide us with long-term happiness. Moreover, suppose we lose ourselves in the trap of needing more and more external stuff to be happy. In that case, we might eventually become miserable because of the effort required to fulfill our needs. We’ll be burning with desire all our lives, putting out the flames while others rise, and the more we want, the hotter the fire.
Nevertheless, it’s a path many people walk from birth to grave. An extreme option that would solve the problem would be eliminating any desire for pleasure. Such asceticism, however, isn’t for everyone. Moreover, it’s likely that despite one’s attempt to achieve it, one never reaches it. Speaking in Schopenhauer’s terms, we’re equipped (or cursed) with a will to live, a drive inherent to being human. Trying to eliminate the pain of desire would mean denying the will to live, which, according to Schopenhauer, is very hard.
There are still people who try, though. Buddhist monks, for example, live ascetic lifestyles which reduce the desire for external things. Stoics also reduce the desire for things not in their control through practice. And when a cessation of craving takes place, when one conquers the will to live, one is left with uninterrupted contentment. A noble goal, but for most of us, very difficult to reach.
We could also attempt to find a middle way; a moderate engagement in pleasure and desire. A way to experience pleasure without getting lost in it; and without exhausting or even destroying ourselves in the pursuit of them. One philosophy to examine is Epicureanism, which distinguishes different categories of pleasures. We often desire pleasures we don’t need to gain a sense of satisfaction. Some of these unnecessary desires are natural, like wanting a big house, elegant food, and physical intimacy.
But according to Epicurus, they aren’t necessary to satisfy ourselves, and thus we shouldn’t focus on them. The worst desires, according to the ancient Greek philosopher, are vain desires as they aren’t natural or necessary. Extreme wealth, fame, and power are examples of these. Epicurus teaches us to enjoy simple pleasures, like eating simple meals and chatting with friends. If we develop a taste for simple pleasures that are widely available, we significantly reduce the cost of our satisfaction.
For example, many people find satisfaction in going to the shopping mall, where they spend their hard-earned money on stuff they often don’t need, going from store to store, purchase to purchase, then to the food court, then to the next mall. Shopping is an expensive method of releasing ourselves from the pain of dissatisfaction. A much cheaper alternative would be to go for a walk. Epicurus also encourages us to appreciate the things we have instead of always looking for more, saying: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” End quote.
Reigniting appreciation for what we have is a cheap way of reducing our desire for what we haven’t. We don’t have to work extra hours to enjoy the stuff we don’t need to buy. Arthur Schopenhauer also offers a cheap way of satisfaction. He encourages us to focus on the pleasures of the intellect. As opposed to many other pleasures like traveling, horse racing, and gambling, the pleasures of the intellect are cheap and widely available. Books generally aren’t too expensive – especially ebooks – and we can borrow them as well.
Moreover, the internet offers an unlimited amount of information that is mostly freely available. If we develop a taste for intellectual pleasures, we’ll have a source of happiness that is low-cost, plentiful, and also enjoyable during the final stages of our lives. Also, intellectual pleasures are generally low-risk. In regard to any pleasure, moderation is a useful characteristic to practice. Too much of anything, even simple pleasures, can be destructive.
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus advised his pupils to treat life as a banquet, to not stretch their desire for the dishes that haven’t come their way yet, and to take their share from those that do (with moderation). And it’s even better if they develop the fortitude to reject what’s served to them so they learn not to give in to their desires. “It’s for this behavior that Diogenes and Heraclitus were rightly called godlike,” Epictetus stated.
As with everything else, desires are just appearances. They come and go. Some are weak and short-lived, others strong and persistent. Always satisfying our desires, and indulging in them, only makes these desires stronger. But if we learn to moderate our desires or even reject them altogether, they will weaken. When our desires weaken, we experience less dissatisfaction and, thus, less pain. We feel less in debt and more content. If we don’t experience the pain of discontent, we don’t need pleasure to end it.
Thank you for watching.