Even those very people who declare the
highest good to be in the belly, see what a dishonorable position they have
assigned to it: and therefore they say that pleasure cannot be parted from virtue,
and that no one can either live honorably without living cheerfully, nor yet
live cheerfully without living honorably.
I do not see how these very different
matters can have any connection with one another. What is there, I pray you, to
prevent virtue existing apart from pleasure? Of course the reason is that all
good things derive their origin from virtue, and therefore even those things,
which you cherish and seek for, come originally from its roots.
Yet, if they were entirely inseparable,
we should not see some things to be pleasant, but not honorable, and others
most honorable indeed, but hard and only to be attained by suffering.
Add to this, that pleasure visits the
basest lives, but virtue cannot co-exist with an evil life. Yet some unhappy
people are not without pleasure, no, it is owing to pleasure itself that they
are unhappy; and this could not take place if pleasure had any connection with
virtue, whereas virtue is often without pleasure, and never stands in need of
it. Why do you put together two things which are unlike and even incompatible
one with another?. . .
—Seneca the
Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 7
(tr Stewart)
Let us
please not assume that pleasure and virtue are in a necessary conflict with one
another, but let us also please not assume that they are one and the same
thing. Seneca, like any good Stoic, does not wish to deny us any pleasure in
life, and he certainly does not wish us any pain. He just wants us to never
confuse pleasure and virtue. They are certainly related to one another, but
they are not interchangeable.
Whether
we recognize it or not, we live in a very Epicurean age. Ask most anyone what
it means to be happy, and he will likely tell you that it’s all about a
pleasant feeling. I have long since learned not to bicker about this, but to
quietly practice my life in a very different way.
I am a
bit troubled when someone tells me that he is happy with his wife because she
always makes him feel good. I wonder if he is being honest with himself,
because love is most certainly not always fun. I also wonder if he has defined
love by what is done to him, and not by what he does.
I remain
convinced that a good man will ultimately find a certain pleasure, in my
estimation the deepest pleasure there can ever be, in the knowledge that he has
lived well. Yet he requires no rewards, and no recognition. He does not do what
is right because it makes him feel good, but only because it is right. The
satisfaction is a consequence, and not the end itself. He may well feel pain in
so many other ways, and he may suffer terribly, but he does not confuse the
awareness of his own character with the gratification of his desires.
The
value of any feeling is only as good as the awareness and action from which it
proceeds. I have known many people, myself included, who have felt pleasure
without being good at all, or have been good without feeling any pleasure at
all. Some of the most disgusting people seem to enjoy their depravity, at least
for the moment, and some of the best people will gladly suffer the greatest
pain.
I have
never thought of myself as a brave man, or even really as a good man; I have
long been in that greyness where I somehow know enough what I should do, but I
usually don’t know enough to actually do it.
I was
once waiting for a taxi, in a part of town I probably shouldn’t have been in to
begin with. Down the street, I saw a bunch of fellows pushing someone around,
and grabbing at the pockets of his jacket. I desperately wanted to look the
other way, but something clicked in me. I walked over, and played the best
Boston Irishman I could. There was much cussing and bravado on my part, though
I am a pale, weak, and sickly creature.
What
happened next was what I suspected would happen, but not what I wanted to
happen. The original victim scuttled off, but now I was the victim. They wanted
blood, and they got it. I was pushed down before I could even think, my head
hit the pavement, and I felt foot after foot kicking me all over. I curled into
a ball, and it hurt like hell.
They
grew tired of their kicking, and wandered off after some choice words, and the
placing of a big glob of warm spit on my face.
How did
I feel? Did any of it give me pleasure? Not at all. My body hurt in a way I had
never felt before, and my ego was ground into the dirt beyond recognition.
I would still
like to think that I did something good, and that I wasn’t just being prideful.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this was the case. Nothing about
it felt good at all, in any way whatsoever. It still doesn’t feel good, and
it’s one of about a dozen experiences I’ve had that still give me nightmares
many years later.
There
are many times in life where we are called to live well, while still knowing
full well that we’re not going to enjoy it. A wise man, my old priest and confessor,
once put this in the simplest of terms: “Don’t expect the world to make your
life pleasant. Expect yourself to try and make the world right.”
Written in 8/2010
Image: Peter Paul Rubens, The Flagellation of Christ (early 17th c.)
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