If one were to measure what is agreeable by the standard of pleasure, nothing would be more pleasant than self-control; and if one were to measure what is to be avoided by pain, nothing would be more painful than lack of self-control.
Stoicism has always stood in sharp contrast to the most prevalent attitudes, in arguing that the highest human good is not to be found in the feeling of pleasure, but in the merit of judgment and action.
To measure life by the power of the passions may at first seem quite sensible, since pleasure and pain are such immediate and forceful modes of experience. What else could be more real, I might insist, than how it relates to my desires and aversions? Everything else seems to revolve around the presence of strong emotions.
Even if I choose to follow such a standard, however, it quickly becomes clear that another condition must always come first, itself informing the way I perceive the meaning of benefit and harm. For pleasure to be truly pleasant, it must be moderated, and if the good of pleasure relies on something greater than itself, it is no longer the highest good.
Too much pleasure becomes quite painful, so it wasn’t the best of states to begin with, was it?
Pleasure and pain will only be appreciated within the context of understanding how and why they can become good or bad. Nothing is more satisfying than having my feelings be subject to my judgments, and nothing is more miserable than having my judgments be enslaved to my feelings.
Whenever I have first thought about the most gratification, I have ended up suffering the most. Whenever I have first thought about doing the right thing, I have somehow found the deepest gratification.
Even the glutton can’t help but eventually recognize, like the Epicurean, that his excess will be the death of him. He now sees pleasure and pain as relative things, not as absolute things, and so he is well on the way to becoming a Stoic, if only he continues to listen to his reason and his conscience.
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