. . . Virtue is a lofty quality,
sublime, royal, unconquerable, untiring. Pleasure is low, slavish, weakly,
perishable; its haunts and homes are the brothel and the tavern. You will meet
virtue in the temple, the marketplace, the senate house, manning the walls,
covered with dust, sunburnt, horny-handed. You will find pleasure skulking out
of sight, seeking for shady nooks at the public baths, hot chambers, and places
which dread the visits of the magistrates, soft, effeminate, reeking of wine
and perfumes, pale or perhaps painted and made up with cosmetics.
The highest good is immortal: it knows
no ending, and does not admit of either satiety or regret. For a right-thinking
mind never alters or becomes hateful to itself, nor do the best things ever
undergo any change, but pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us
most. It has no great scope, and therefore it soon cloys and wearies us, and
fades away as soon as its first impulse is over.
Indeed, we cannot depend upon anything
whose nature is to change. Consequently it is not even possible that there
should be any solid substance in that which comes and goes so swiftly, and
which perishes by the very exercise of its own functions, for it arrives at a
point at which it ceases to be, and even while it is beginning always keeps its
end in view.
—Seneca
the Younger, On the happy life,
Chapter 7 (tr Stewart)
I have never
been an uptight or prudish person, a moral curmudgeon or an ideological stick
in the mud. I do not believe that passions must be denied in order to live my
life well, and I am saddened whenever I see people who hate their own
appetites, thinking they can only be good if they are cold, joyless, and
heartless. I have never agreed with the morality of Immanuel Kant.
I hardly
knew what to say when a very proper man once told me that he had many children
because it was his duty to God and to society. “What about all the wonderful
pleasure there is in making them,” I asked with a grin, “and all the wonderful
pleasure there is in sharing your life with them?” He was aghast. Marriage, he
told me, was about making more babies, even it was deeply dirty and distasteful
to do so.
At the
same time, I have little patience for the lecher, the glutton, or the
money-grubber. I recently somehow struggled my way through a conversation with
a man who offered me a list of all the attractive celebrities he wanted to have
sex with. It hardly occurred to him that they might not wish to sleep with him,
of course, but I did mange to ask him why this was so desirable. “Hey, I’ll
have my fun, even if I have to put a bag over her head, and maybe I’ll get some
alimony out of it!” He found it funny, and I found it disgusting.
The good
life is never about denying pleasure for its own sake, or seeking pleasure for
its own sake. Pleasure is, in itself, indifferent. Some feelings are good,
because they follow from good actions, and some feelings are bad, because they
follow from bad actions. I am not just a beast, and I am not just a mind in a
vat. I am a human being because I can think about what is good, and also
understand why some things are indeed worth enjoying.
Seneca
may appear a bit uptight here, but hard experience has taught me that he is
right on the mark. I distinctly recall my senior year in college, and all of
the things I did because they just seemed fun. The shame was not in the fun,
but in what I did to get there.
A few
weeks before I graduated, I was sitting in the sleaziest bar you can imagine, with
all of my supposed friends completely drunk, and the lost love of my life giving
an erotic backrub to a complete stranger. I felt sick, not just because I had
too much to drink, or because my girl was a tramp, but because I suddenly saw
who I was becoming.
I told
myself that I would, of course, return to a life of propriety the next day, but
that was an illusion. I would simply continue to use and abuse others, not in
the crudeness of a watering hole, but in the fancy environment of a
professional life. The trappings were different, but the lifestyle was the
same.
I always
remind myself that there is a difference between love and lust. The former
gives, and the latter only takes. The different places and different situations
Seneca describes are defined by the presence or absence of love and lust.
The
pathetic irony has always been that I may seek to possess, consume, or enjoy,
but as soon as I have done so, I immediately want more. Pleasure itself will
never satisfy, because it is itself never complete. Lust craves, but Love
rests.
Written in 6/1994
Image: Hieronymus Francken, An Allegory of Love and Lust (late 16th c.)
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