Hedonism

I once thought of hedonism as a pointless, selfish and silly way of life. I was a serious person who planned ahead for sensible, fulfilling things, and got pleasure from achievement (probably because there wasn't much else in the way of fun as a child).
Hedonism seemed very short-sighted. If we refer to economics terminology, it seemed like extreme future discounting: you take your moment now, no matter what happens in the future. That's not a sensible way to live a whole life (if you're a perfect economical being for their models) and people who don't do it as very small children tend to grow up to be much more successful than those who do.
Hedonism can be variously defined, but here I'm sticking with 'pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially that of the senses.' I know that it's also a philosophical school of thought, and I know that hedonism also means to many people neglect of duties and responsibilities, but I'll leave those things as possible effects, rather than central to the definition.
Hedonism, both my definition and the philosophical school, has many critics, and there are plenty of books about it. Perhaps the most famous is 'A Portrait of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde, which certainly concerns hedonism.


Not only staid and resilient people like my younger self regard hedonism as bad. Most religious people, or even idealists, look down on simple pleasuring of the senses and the chase of experience. I know that many people who've been through tough experiences, or are going through them, look for something other than the present as motivation, and find people who enjoy the moment to be short-sighted and wasteful. Those same people, when they find themselves in nicer lives, often lose the drive they had; they got drive from the stress of the situation, and are not adept at manufacturing it themselves.

Stoicism comes from hard times. Stoics value virtues over achievements, the pessimistic view that one might consider to underlie Stoicism being that achievement is barely possible, and even then only transitory. Pain is all you can expect, and all you can control is your responses to the sorrows of life, rather than any aspect of that life.
And one of the best Stoics was Seneca, teacher of Nero (one of the ultimate hedonists!). Seneca wrote one particular book, called 'On the shortness of life' on which I want to dwell for a moment. In this book he says that life seems short, but the way to ensure contentment and happiness is to fill it up: to keep yourself busy. People who look back on their lives and see nothing are depressed and disappointed. This insight has been confirmed by modern neuroscience: you form more memories when you're doing new things than when doing things you know. Well, perceived time is different. Two weeks in a pleasurable holiday location forms as many memories as one week, in terms of looking back.

Seneca's ideas, apart from being two-thousand years ahead of his time, struck a chord with me, even with my younger self. I kept myself busy then (or rather, I was kept busy with lots of activites at school). And they lead to hedonism: if you want to lead a contented, fulfilling life, you must seek out new experiences and avoid boredom. You must chase new achievements at the very least, and experience new things along the way.
So now I'm older, and I look back on the things I've done, there's quite a list, and yet it's not extensive enough. Were I to go hiking with friends now I could encounter some fairly extreme conditions and not really remember it well, because I've been there a number of times before. My friends would find it spectacular. The conditions would have to be unmanageable for inexperienced hikers before I got too excited.
I enjoy hiking, but are 'boring' hikes worth it? What's in it for me (barring the obvious good time with friends in places we've not been together)? I want special memories. I want a fulfilled life: already I look back and regret the opportunities lost, and find that the last few years seem quiet. How can I reverse this gradual deterioration of the quality of life, when everything seems the same?

I need to find new experiences: I need to form special memories. And for that, I need more and more special challenges. And each time I rack up the 'specialness', that level becomes more normal. So inevitably special events occur less and less frequently, until life merges into one dull day after another. And then I'm old and grey, and ready to give up on life, and youngsters like me can't understand it. Only maybe I do now.

Can this be prevented? There are plenty of things to do and try in the world, but will they all merge into similar levels of 'thrill'? Is life really a question of living fast, taking greater and greater risks, and then dying young? Do we only have a limited number of special experiences before we either die of the risks associated with chasing them, or grow old and uninterested in the boredom that life offers?

At the moment I can only hope that I can continue to chase new things as much as I find I can. I'm sad that at the moment that's quite minimal, but I'm willing to continue throughout my life. More and more I hope I can live to see anti-ageing and rejuvenation therapies, so that I can go back and re-experience the worlds of the undergraduate again. But will it really be the same? I was shy, depressed and paranoid the first time. The second time I'll be old and world-weary. Perhaps I'll never have a good few years of fun and frolics with a few like-minded people who become good friends. If I learned less fast, would new experiences remain thrilling for longer? Is learning quickly a good way to guarantee depression?

One thing I can say, though, is that I don't want to settle down and 'nest'. The idea of forsaking even more possibilities and deliberately achieving boredom and sameness goes against everything that Seneca has to say about living fulfilled lives.

I can also now understand even more why people might react so deeply against foreign and unusual things. As soon as your horizons are broadened, they cannot be easily shrunk. I see the whole world of possibilities, cultures, sights and experiences and regret that I cn't try them all. Not seeing them, or being able to dismiss them in your ignorance as nasty people, sinners or otherwise suffering from it helps people feel fulfilled in their small worlds.