Suffering and Pleasure
Is the meaning of life suffering or pleasure? Which is it? For those with no belief in God, there is no issue I suppose – obviously life is meant to be enjoyed to the maximum, so long as nobody gets hurt… If you believe in God, or are at least troubled in your Soul as to the question of whether or not there is a God and whether He is imminent (he cares) or transcendant (doesn’t care), then of course, you may ask yourself if life’s purpose is suffering.
What do I mean by this? It refers to the notion of noble suffering like the kind of perfect suffering that Christ displayed in giving up His entire being to Crucifixion so that others who follow his example may live eternally. The whole notion of the Pleasure/Pain principle is a fascinating one for me, especially if one considers that in some ways that pleasure, when taken to the extreme takes on some aspects of pain, and conversely that pain, in the extreme has been felt almost as an ecstatic kind of “pleasure” or purging of oneself – again, this can be in a positve religious mystical experience, or in a perverted and masochistic sense.
Ask yourself today, as Aristotle did long ago, what you feel constitutes the “Good” and what is “Evil” in a very honest way, and you may be surprised. Is “good” that which simply gives pleasure, and “evil” those things you just don’t like or enjoy? Or is it more complex? If the “good” is that which makes the world a better place, and evil that which destroys this “good”, then it may result in your being called upon to do acts of charity that indeed do not feel pleasurable at all, while avoiding those things you would truly find physically or materially pleasurable…
So it seems there may be a kind of complex “moral matrix” at work so to speak, a system in which one may find themselves operating in any one of four modes at any given time, even unawares:
You may choose to act in a situation that is both pleasurable (feels nice) while also achieving a selfless act of charity to help another (altruistic good). On the other hand, you may do something that feels painful (giving large sums of money to the needy) while achieving something good (making the world a better place than you found it). It is helpful to examine all of your more important activities of each day in this exact manner. The “moral matrix” can be a simple yet helpful “ethical calculator” that you can input to and receive quick intuitive responses directly from your conscience. Try it today!
Is the meaning of life suffering or pleasure? Which is it? For those with no belief in God, there is no issue I suppose – obviously life is meant to be enjoyed to the maximum, so long as nobody gets hurt… If you believe in God, or are at least troubled in your Soul as to the question of whether or not there is a God and whether He is imminent (he cares) or transcendant (doesn’t care), then of course, you may ask yourself if life’s purpose is suffering.
What do I mean by this? It refers to the notion of noble suffering like the kind of perfect suffering that Christ displayed in giving up His entire being to Crucifixion so that others who follow his example may live eternally. The whole notion of the Pleasure/Pain principle is a fascinating one for me, especially if one considers that in some ways that pleasure, when taken to the extreme takes on some aspects of pain, and conversely that pain, in the extreme has been felt almost as an ecstatic kind of “pleasure” or purging of oneself – again, this can be in a positve religious mystical experience, or in a perverted and masochistic sense.
Ask yourself today, as Aristotle did long ago, what you feel constitutes the “Good” and what is “Evil” in a very honest way, and you may be surprised. Is “good” that which simply gives pleasure, and “evil” those things you just don’t like or enjoy? Or is it more complex? If the “good” is that which makes the world a better place, and evil that which destroys this “good”, then it may result in your being called upon to do acts of charity that indeed do not feel pleasurable at all, while avoiding those things you would truly find physically or materially pleasurable…
So it seems there may be a kind of complex “moral matrix” at work so to speak, a system in which one may find themselves operating in any one of four modes at any given time, even unawares:
You may choose to act in a situation that is both pleasurable (feels nice) while also achieving a selfless act of charity to help another (altruistic good). On the other hand, you may do something that feels painful (giving large sums of money to the needy) while achieving something good (making the world a better place than you found it). It is helpful to examine all of your more important activities of each day in this exact manner. The “moral matrix” can be a simple yet helpful “ethical calculator” that you can input to and receive quick intuitive responses directly from your conscience. Try it today!
