Hedonism and Misery

The natural outcome of hedonism is misery.

This is verifiable.¹

Hedonism needs an anchor.

Pleasure for pleasure’s sake offers us no limit and has the effect of making what gives us momentary pleasure, less and less pleasurable, and, the negative effect of the harm of the consequence of that thing or experience.

It’s the appetite affect:

Overeating leads to engorged appetites, which leads to more overeating.

Iced cream once in a while with the family is a special treat.

Iced cream everyday alone, is a coping mechanism that becomes more and more dissatisfying, and harms us in many ways. The empty calories make us hungrier for more food of substance, and the unhealthiness leads us to use our balm in order to stop feeling the sickness of our enlarged appetites.

Alcoholics who drink to mask the hangover have similar patterns.

It’s not really the iced cream that gives us the fondest memories. As sweet as it is, it is what the pleasure is connected to — family, memories, experiences, etc. A laughing family with a sugary treat is as a fun saccharine high, but it is fleetingly ephemeral.

It is the anchor that gives it value. And those anchors are intentional decisions that derive from elsewhere.

The family outing for iced cream was a reward for good grades. It was a way to value hard work, and create deeper bonds. It was done because work is deemed to be of value and to be encouraged, as is family.

Work and Family are values that are themselves contingent. Why are families of value? Why is work? Plenty of things in nature have parasitic relationships or abandon children. Why do we give them value? We begin moving deeper and deeper into to the realm of ethics the more we seek out our first and primary contingencies. They have value because that value came from somwhere. Finally, according to Thomas Aquinas², we come to the place of something that must not be contingent. It is, therefore everything from it has value.

I AM who I AM, sayid the Lord to Moses.³

The Anchor.

1. Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). “Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change.”
   Or
   Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). “Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change.” ↩︎
2. I’ve come about this in a derivative way from much of the writing and speaking done by Bishop Robert Barron. It is not my scholarship or understanding. ↩︎
3. Exodus 3:14 ↩︎