Flocker - The hedonism handbook: mastering the lost art of leisure and pleasure

NO HUMAN THING IS OF SERIOUS IMPORTANCE.

Plato

YES, YES, I KNOW, CIGARETTES ARE BAD AND SEX CAN BE dangerous. But a strange and disturbing epidemic seems to have gripped the nation of late in the form of a most ludicrous assumption: If you avoid all things pleasurable, you will live a long and happy life. But can happiness really be found scampering along on a treadmill in a smoke-free environment, Palm Pilot in hand, chasing after the capitalist ideal? Are sixty-hour work weeks, bulging stock portfolios and a packed agenda really the keys to the good life? I think not.

In recent years, the Western world has become a kaleidoscopic pastiche of bright lights, media manipulation, global gossip and desperate competition. People stare at computer screens all day, eat lunch at their desks, plan their daily schedules on hand-held devices, and make play dates for their children. Obsessed with becoming richer, thinner, more successful and, implausibly, even younger, millions of us deprive ourselves on a daily basis of the one thing we misguidedly believe we are rushing towardthe good life. After a long workday, we rush home to watch what is amusingly known as reality television only to return to the office the next day to discuss the startling twists and turns in the manufactured realities of strangers, our own lives reduced to a mere afterthought. This hectic pace is sometimes cleverly offset by regularly scheduled workouts, carb-free diets, a stiff shot of wheatgrass juice and two weeks of vacation carefully planned online. Happiness, you see?

Added to this lovely cocktail of confusion are increasingly capricious laws that have smokers huddling on sidewalks, fast-food restaurants disclosing the shocking news that their food may make you fat, e-mails being monitored, park benches sporting dividers to prevent reclining, and various restrictions on language and lifestyle in general. It would seem that wethe masses have become little more than fat baby ducks who need to be shepherded through life lest we veer off into a dangerous realm of personal responsibility and free will.

At some point, the good life became some distantly imagined finish line that could only be reached through psychotic effort and willful determination. Like overcaffeinated hamsters on a wheel, we began running, sweating, sacrificing and panicking. The weight may be lost, but the self-loathing remains. The promotion may be earned, but the expenses keep rising. And despite all outward successes, the inner feelings of inadequacy and the disapproving sneers of the neighbors seem to become magnified. Could there possibly be something wrong with this master plan? Is there something out there, some lost key to the kingdom of happiness that is being overlooked? You bet your ass there is.

Its called pleasure. And whatever happened to pleasure? The Oxford American Dictionary defines happy as, feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. To enjoy is to get pleasure from. So, it would seem that happiness and enjoyment are rooted in the very principle of pleasure, which is currently on the brink of extinction. And pleasure has always been at the very heart of hedonism since the very notion first came into being back in the days of ancient Greece.

It is no coincidence that in times of great pressure, stress and strain, people tend to look for means of relief and escape. But if these moments of glorious indulgence are weighed down with unrealistic expectations or feelings of desperation, they often backfire because they tip the scales and throw off the cosmic balance of life. You cant run a marathon and then decide to suddenly get hammered. Bad things will surely happen. You cant fast for a month and then eat a whole cake. And you cant deprive yourself of pleasure and bliss for years, striving to become a superstar, only to try to escape from all the pressure by going on a messy crack bender. The trick is to pace yourself.

Eat the cake, drink the wine, lie in a hammock and stare at the stars with the hottie you picked up on the beach, but dont try to jam it all into a tightly-scheduled, six-day vacation. If you give in to beauty, pleasure and self-indulgenceon a daily basis, not only will you be happier day-to-day, you will be less likely to go off the deep end when it all gets too much and you finally cave in. One must practice the art of hedonism regularly to get really good at it.

By most definitions, hedonism is considered a lifestyle in which pleasure and happiness are the ultimate goals in life. A hedonist is one who seeks pleasure and avoids pain above all else. And somehow, this lovely and charming premise has been twisted and perverted to the point where it actually has negative connotations in the minds of many. But are the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain really such bad things? Dont babies, universally considered to be the purest of all beings, gravitate to the warmth and satisfaction of the bosom? Dont they wail at the discomfort of a full diaper and an itchy bunghole? Of course they do. They havent been programmed to discipline themselves into a ridiculous, unnatural and miserable state of Spartan self-denial.