Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.10

Repentance is a kind of self-reproof for having neglected something useful; but that which is good must be something useful, and the perfect good man should look after it.

But no such man would ever repent of having refused any sensual pleasure. Pleasure then is neither good, nor useful.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8 (tr Long)

I can think of all the things I have felt sorry for, all of the thoughts and deeds I have regretted. Even as I write, the very memory makes me grit my teeth. I repent of deception and lies. I repent of manipulating and stealing. I repent of anger and hate. I repent of taking more than my share, and leaving another less than his share. I repent especially of lust instead of love, desire instead of compassion.

Yet at no point have I ever felt the need to repent of a virtuous act. I may question it, I may doubt it, and I may worry about all the consequences of following my conscience, but I have never done myself wrong by doing what is right.

And that should tell me something very important: if it’s really good, there’s never any reason to take it back.

“But life is about having fun!” That sounds great, until fun stops being just enjoying something pleasant, and becomes the pursuit of the destructive. What seems so fun can so quickly become something quite bad. Any glutton, any grasping man, any addict will admit this, however begrudgingly. If it made you so happy, why did it hurt you so much?

College was not a good time for me. One could find decent folks hiding out in the corners, but by and large it was an orgy of pleasure.  It was considered a badge of honor to pass out, to wake up in a strange bed, to have had one’s way with as many people as possible. That was the norm for most of the kids at a fancy school. Now were we any better, or happier?

Who lives under the illusion that people raised for four years to be barbarians will suddenly become civilized when they graduate? We certainly didn’t. We kept up the same old games, but under the appearance of prim and proper decency. Put fancy suits on animals, give them important jobs, and demand good manners of them, but you still have animals. They gave us all the credentials, but cared nothing for our character.

I fought it for years, with tooth and nail, but I finally saw that I could not be a creature of gratification. Some pleasures are truly divine, and others are truly demonic. What makes them different? The enjoyment of virtue is sublime, and the enjoyment of vice is brutal.

Pleasure can indeed be a good. Yet I choose to see it not as the cause of my happiness, but as a consequence of my happiness. How well I feel is measured by how well I live, and only the best actions will result in the best pleasures. Let me compare the pleasures that came from my own selfishness with the pleasure that came from sincere love. The difference is like that of night and day.

When Marcus Aurelius says that pleasure is neither good nor useful, this rubs us the wrong way. We live in a society that glorifies pleasure. But it really isn’t good in itself, because some pleasures are good for us, as others are bad for us. It isn’t really useful either, because it is a consequence, and not a cause.

I enjoy fun as much, if not more, than any other guy. I am also trying to learn that the value of the fun is relative to the value of what is true, good, and beautiful. 

Written in 2/2008

IMAGE: It looks one way on the outside, but is quite different on the inside. . .