On pleasure deferred

Dear diary,

It’s like a movie “filmed in glorious black and white.” You infer that there are colors in the world of the story, but each one is only a mixture of those two shades. Color therefore seems to be everywhere while it truly does not exist.

I’m thinking of pleasure and pain again: perhaps everything in our reality is a mixture of those two sensations – so our dimension is not monochromatic but monopathic (or an apter suffix). Could it be that love does not exist but is only inferred? Or all the other equivalents of color in the world of emotion – are they illusory? And, if so, then what does it matter?

It doesn’t matter at all. To say that all human feelings are illusions changes nothing beyond language about our reality. In fact, we’ve made existence more cumbersome, if we now must add the qualifier “fake” in front of all descriptors.

But I still find something interesting about the idea that the raw, simple reaction to pleasure and pain informs all our stances – philosophical, religious, aesthetic . . .

Recently I’ve read deeply in Saint Augustine and in Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both men were moved by the idea of Christian martyrdom. The fact that someone would die for an idea: does this strike you as a proof of that idea’s truth? It impresses me when anyone is willing to go to such lengths, but I find it sadly easy to believe that humans can be deceived; so all martyrdoms appear quixotic to me.

The denial of pleasure for the sake of righteousness. How far does the denial need to go, to qualify as genuine? – A Christian takes a vow of poverty. This is a denial of pleasure. If we ask the Christian to explain himself, he says “I have decided to endure a life of hardship here on earth, in hopes of obtaining a reward in heaven.” – Do you see the trick? Pleasure is not really denied but rather postponed. Pleasure is still the goal; it’s just that the Christian opts for a “long game” strategy, compared to his infidel neighbors who seek pleasure now instead of later.

SEUMAS: I rejoice in the vindication of the Church and Truth.

DAVOREN: Bah. You know as little about truth as anybody else, and you care as little about the Church as the least of those that profess her faith; your religion is simply the state of being afraid that God will torture your soul in the next world as you are afraid the [police] will torture your body in this.

—from The Shadow of a Gunman
by Sean O’Casey

Is there something better about favoring an eventual pleasure over an instant one? I guess, if the eventual pleasure is greater. It makes sense to say “Skip today’s small reward and give me the bigger reward tomorrow.” I understand this, if the choice is either-or. But if one can have both rewards, why not welcome continual pleasure?

After being accustomed to frown on such souls as impulsive, at this point in my life I’m learning to feel respect for whoever dares to prefer any immediate gratification over a promised one. You can call me a doubter, a nonbeliever, and reprimand me for lacking faith; but I have a hunch that it’s all hogwash – all this talk of heavenly promises, of rewards waiting in the world to come for whoever renounces pleasure. I say: all these notions were devised by those who aim to embezzle what should be humankind’s peace dividend. Since time immemorial, small groups of system-gamers have seized the lion’s portion of what should be everyone’s fair share. In other words, all these variations on the idea of “pay now, buy later” are just ways to hoodwink the commonwealth away from the commoners.