Entertainment has to be earned, pleasure has to be paid for, and doing what you love means wasting time, idling, postponing pressing worries. What do we lose by forbidding ourselves to enjoy?
«Pleasure is a very dubious thing, and you always have to pay for it.» It seems that this is one of the fundamental principles in Russian culture. Add to this the modern obsession with expediency and the achievement of all success in a row — and you get an explosive cocktail.
A woman working day and night realizes that she is terribly tired. He starts reading his favorite book and … cannot relax. She is gnawing at the thought of cases that urgently need to be sorted out — instead of wasting time.
He and she met, felt attracted to each other. They do not have «second halves». And they – “accidentally” – had sex. The next morning, he wakes up with heavy thoughts about what to do with this woman now, and she — with the thought: “Isn’t it too fast?” … Another option is also possible — even before sex, he thinks: “Well, let’s sleep … And what’s next? » It is as if this pleasure only acquires value when it is “paid for”: by remorse, by communication in which no one is interested.
Banned for many and the pleasure of eating. «Sweet? I, please, this tiny piece. I can’t even have him … ”With such an attitude, there will be no joy from a small piece of joy, except perhaps from the fact that I didn’t eat too much. But it is divorced from the reality of what is happening here and now.
- Pleasures: how to use
Wacky comedy or tearful melodrama? They are not supposed to enjoy, we, as developed people, cannot enjoy such primitive things. Admitting to yourself that you were touched by the “snotty-sweet” scene or laughing at a stupid joke, something does not allow. And instead of indulging in simple pleasure, someone begins to preserve the image of a “developed person”.
Pleasure has two main enemies: haste and attitudes driven into the psyche associated with a ban on the joy of life. If we snack in a hurry, the taste does not really reveal itself. Quickie sex is more of a release of tension than real pleasure. «Swallowing» books, you do not have time to feel the style of the author or the experiences of the characters. We just haven’t learned to watch movies “quickly” yet, but it seems that we won’t be behind this … Children feel this rush well, and therefore the proposal “finish it quickly” causes them a violent protest — this is impossible, it kills all the pleasure from the process and satisfaction from the result!
When you achieve success, it is very important to set aside time to enjoy it. This is not a waste of time — this is an important life milestone, a reminder of who you are, what you like, where you are going. Otherwise, this picture will turn out: climbers climbed a hard-to-reach peak and immediately went down — they have no time to jump, yell, rush.
Here we meet the second «enemy» — installations. For some, expressing joy violently is undignified, it seems childish and stupid. You have to hold back — thereby killing the pleasure. And someone immediately thinks about the «payment», about the consequences — even before they come, and without discussing whether they will come at all.
Pleasure is evidence that we live, that we want something and do it. Life without pleasure — isn’t it too high a price for the time won or your own ideas about how it should and should be?