If you research and study anything for long enough, you will come closer to understanding the basis of your subject. For most of my life, I had a reason for everything I did. But continually, my reasoning was based upon expediency. You see, I followed what I thought was the Epicurean pleasure principle. Not the real one, but the one that has been widely promoted in the general media.
I thought that when Epicurus said, “The end of all our
actions is to be free from pain and fear”, I assumed that he meant I should avoid
pain and fear. But with me, it was much more than avoidance, it was denying pain
and fear. And not only in myself, but in others too.
I didn’t want to know other people’s pain or grief. I didn’t
want to know my own. My main thought was, if I’m happy, so is everyone else
around me. And if they were unhappy, I didn’t want to know them. If I became discontented
with them, I pushed them out of my life. However, I could not escape myself. I
still had a lot of pain and fear. I was unhappy all the time.
I avoided discomfort by leaving painful situations. I dodged
fear by never looking at it or finding out why I had feared. I simply dismissed
these things and moved on to somewhere or someone new. When I found that I was
in pain or fear again, I ran away.
I thought that if I avoided pain and fear, my life would be
full of sensual delights. That wasn’t the case, it was the opposite. I found
that I had Agliophobia, which is a persistent, unwarranted, and often an irrational
fear of pain. In every situation, with every person, I found the same old fear
and pain. I had abandoned myself to a life of bodily desires and found that I
didn’t actually have a life. Eventually, I got tired of running and hiding. I had
exhausted myself more than anything else. It was simply too much trouble to
start over again and move on, to try to escape my fear of fear and pain.
So, how did I get over my Agliophobia and achieve this
miraculous enlightenment and change? I didn’t. I have not altered one solitary
thing about me from the age of 20 until now in my 60s. I spent 40 years in pain
and fear for no reason.
I’m still the same greedy, dipsomaniac liar that I have
always been. Nothing has changed my view of pleasure or the world. Pleasure is
still the goal of my life and I place it above other things and other people.
I found no pleasure in reasoning. All analysis showed me was
how I had wasted my time analysing things. Because evaluating, considering,
exploring, and probing only made things worse. My unexamined life gave me the
pleasure I had always been seeking.
Sounds counterintuitive? Not to me. What I’ve found is that
the best life is the longest life lived in pleasure. Though I avoid overt greed
and sloth; they are too much trouble to attain. I have resisted the urge of the
real Epicurean principle and built my own world of pleasure that is defined by
my terms and no other. I don’t have that outer classic life of hedonism like a
rock star or a billionaire, but inside, I do.
From the outside, people see me as a sober, calm person of caring
and understanding. They see me this way because that’s what they want to see,
that’s what they expect other people to be. I’m not an ancient Roman who takes
what he wants and kills anyone who stands in my way. I don’t have to be a
Roman, or anything else. I let people believe that what they think I am, I am.
This is how I killed off all my pain and fear. Other people
did it for me. Other people granted me a life of sober reasoning, at least from
their point of view I was a restrained person of logic. Regardless of how
irrational and dangerous my life really is, I am seen as a soul of calm and empathy.
Maybe, in the eyes of others, the only way to have a life of
sober reasoning is to be seen to have sober reasoning. It looks like Gandhi and
Mother Teresa had sober reasoning, but it’s way too difficult to be like them. With
the hell and trouble that other people cause you, it’s best to let them think what
they want. This is how you can have sober reasoning. Let other people think
what they want of you. Inside, you can be anything you desire.
If you let other people think that you are what they think you are, they will leave you alone to get on with your life of pleasure.
