Reading on Manglish most recent post-Pain had prompted my rusty grey matter to think. Anyway, kindly read this before proceed to read the rest of my post.
In my opinion, addicted to (non physical) pain is nothing unusual. Some of us tend to 'enjoy' being traumatized, or to an extent, being tortured emotionally. As pain is the most intense emotions of all. Feeling pain intensifies and elevates the significance of an individuals. In another words, feeling pain makes one to feel alive.
However, the focus of this blog has nothing to do with this self-inflicted pain. The part which dawn on me is the long and short term happiness as mentioned in the post. According to the author, the short term pleasures are usually associated with food, sex and any activities/ entertainments which give sensory pleasures; while long term happiness usually has a more holistic goal- such as having a good life, healthy figure, good career and good relationship etc.
The author, who is a Psychology Professor asked this one million dollar question in his post. "Is it better to be a happy pig or sad Socrates?"
Seriously, i think i'm a pig who try to be a sad Socrates.
There are too many times during those happy moments when i'm trully enjoying myself, my conscience will start to barge in and stop this pig from indulging further, even it may not necessarily be a sinful pleasure. Sometimes, i'm depriving myself of simple acts such as eating ice cream, hanging out too late, driving too fast etc. To an extent, its like having invisible infrared wires detector surrounding me, it beeps uncontrollably whenever the Socrates in me disapproves my act. What i didnt realize is that i'm placing a limitation to the amount of happiness that i should enjoyed, and falsely believe that by doing so, its serving my long term goal of happiness.
In that sense, I can echoed with the author that soemtimes it is alright to become a happy Homer Simpson and satisfy my immediate appetite (which may not be necessarily evil or stupid) which got nothing to do with long term happiness.
A simple example. Recently during Raya holiday, i've attended my church retreat camp at Bagan Lalang, Sepang. The last night of the camp a group of us are playing a stupid poker game and whoever loses had to do exactly what he/she was asked to as punishment. We have some wild punishments (like kungfu fighting, running around the hall while shouting etc.) and everyone was enjoying the best of our time. However, it was approaching 1230am and i was highly cautious about the time. Well, partly because i have a long drive back to KL the next day hence this old man Socrates keep telling me to stop playing and go to sleep, which i had obeyed, and left abruptly and i think it sort of spoiled the excitements and mood of others.
However putting aside the lame excuse (this 26 years old lady need 8 hours of rest to replenish her energy in order to drive 1 and a half hours the next day?!?), do i really need to deprive myself of perfectly good pleasures, including those involving companionship and friendship, because of wrong conscience (you know, good sleep is necessary for the good health of this 26 years old). Quoting the author's word, Some of this pleasures are easy enough to explain: food and friendship are evolutionary no-brainers, we enjoy them because they motivate us in adaptively useful ways. Hence why do we need to rationalize them or to think whether do they serve the long term goal of happiness or not.
Final Quote "Perhaps the good life doesn’t require constant warfare".
In my opinion, addicted to (non physical) pain is nothing unusual. Some of us tend to 'enjoy' being traumatized, or to an extent, being tortured emotionally. As pain is the most intense emotions of all. Feeling pain intensifies and elevates the significance of an individuals. In another words, feeling pain makes one to feel alive.
However, the focus of this blog has nothing to do with this self-inflicted pain. The part which dawn on me is the long and short term happiness as mentioned in the post. According to the author, the short term pleasures are usually associated with food, sex and any activities/ entertainments which give sensory pleasures; while long term happiness usually has a more holistic goal- such as having a good life, healthy figure, good career and good relationship etc.
The author, who is a Psychology Professor asked this one million dollar question in his post. "Is it better to be a happy pig or sad Socrates?"
Seriously, i think i'm a pig who try to be a sad Socrates.
There are too many times during those happy moments when i'm trully enjoying myself, my conscience will start to barge in and stop this pig from indulging further, even it may not necessarily be a sinful pleasure. Sometimes, i'm depriving myself of simple acts such as eating ice cream, hanging out too late, driving too fast etc. To an extent, its like having invisible infrared wires detector surrounding me, it beeps uncontrollably whenever the Socrates in me disapproves my act. What i didnt realize is that i'm placing a limitation to the amount of happiness that i should enjoyed, and falsely believe that by doing so, its serving my long term goal of happiness.
In that sense, I can echoed with the author that soemtimes it is alright to become a happy Homer Simpson and satisfy my immediate appetite (which may not be necessarily evil or stupid) which got nothing to do with long term happiness.
A simple example. Recently during Raya holiday, i've attended my church retreat camp at Bagan Lalang, Sepang. The last night of the camp a group of us are playing a stupid poker game and whoever loses had to do exactly what he/she was asked to as punishment. We have some wild punishments (like kungfu fighting, running around the hall while shouting etc.) and everyone was enjoying the best of our time. However, it was approaching 1230am and i was highly cautious about the time. Well, partly because i have a long drive back to KL the next day hence this old man Socrates keep telling me to stop playing and go to sleep, which i had obeyed, and left abruptly and i think it sort of spoiled the excitements and mood of others.
However putting aside the lame excuse (this 26 years old lady need 8 hours of rest to replenish her energy in order to drive 1 and a half hours the next day?!?), do i really need to deprive myself of perfectly good pleasures, including those involving companionship and friendship, because of wrong conscience (you know, good sleep is necessary for the good health of this 26 years old). Quoting the author's word, Some of this pleasures are easy enough to explain: food and friendship are evolutionary no-brainers, we enjoy them because they motivate us in adaptively useful ways. Hence why do we need to rationalize them or to think whether do they serve the long term goal of happiness or not.
Final Quote "Perhaps the good life doesn’t require constant warfare".
2 comments:
i want neither to be a happy pig or sad socrates!!
Rejoice in the lord, always.
Be it a sinful indulgence here and there,
or an excuse we made up to pleasure ourselves...
it really doesn't matter if we have joy in our heart.
you dun have to be sad/guilty over this patty decision, does it?!
final quotes from me: dun complicates simple things from life!
Easy said than done, i know! haha!
ya i agree sometimes we just let the rational part of us takes over the hedonist inside of us....is that the definition of maturity? :)
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