Pleasure in seeing leads to an excessive preoccupation with colors.
Pleasure in hearing leads to an excessive preoccupation with sounds.
Pleasure in benevolence leads to disorder in virtue.
Pleasure in righteousness leads to opposition to reason.
Pleasure in ritual leads to artifice.
Pleasure in music leads to sensuous indulgence.
Pleasure in wisdom of the sage leads to novel inventions.
Pleasure in knowledge leads to contentions.

If all stayed within their given nature,
whether these eight pleasures were pursued or not
would be of no significance;
But when they are imperfectly and unevenly
cultivated or suppressed
the world is thrown into disorder.

The world honors these pleasures
and they become indispensable.

This is utter delusion!

(And) It is not yet over with…

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou trans. by Hyun Hochmann, Yang Guorong, Letting Be and Letting Stand

We live in a society that is drenched, soaked in a pursuit of pleasure.

The maturing of the industrial revolution inclusive of materials science and mass production techniques has brought the common objects of day-to-day widely available, at a low price, in infinite variety. This proliferation of “things” recently supercharged by the maturing revolution in computing, in communication – can be appreciated by wandering around a Best Buy store for twenty minutes. Such a cornucopia of goods, with promise of even more to come. Is obsolescence engineered into the product to make room for the next iteration? Perhaps.

Who does not prefer pleasure to pain? I am careful to avoid those who gravitate toward pain. Aristotle was right that pleasure is a sign attending those activities that promote happiness or thriving. Of happiness, I am a fan. And I understand how difficult, how fragile, evanescent happiness is. It evaporates easily as “to thrive” requires focus, but not too much…

Yesterday late in the evening I viewed the televised victory of the Duke football team over Virginia. I watched with indifference, and a tinge of impatience because the game was taking priority over the ten o’clock channel 7 news. This was the first ACC conference championship win for Duke. The Blue Devils beat Virginia 27 to 20 in overtime. Certainly it was an exciting game. But the post-game celebration went on and on as far as I was concerned. This seemed to be a very, very big deal as interviews with many players and with the coach was broadcast. Then the trophy award ritual took place. Take in the immensity of the conference sports stadiums of our major Universities, and it is clear what we care about most. The game, and winning above all else!

The Zhuangzi suggests that when pleasure is our prime value, that we lose ourselves. Disorder naturally follows because there can never be enough…

A hamster wheel of pleasure!