The Master of Hedonism
I was thinking about hedonism, and then I felt that maybe I should read about the master of hedonism a little. And then, as it happened with me many times earlier while writing a blogpost, I found that his birthday is tomorrow, the 1st April. I do not know if it all happens by chance each time, or just that all these info, which I obviously keep reading many times, sit in some hidden parts of my brain and suddenly spits themselves out when the time comes. Of course, it is also true that on any given day, many people are born and many die; so naturally, some or other person I know about must die today, tomorrow or on any other day. (For example, Toshiro Mifune also was born on 1st April; last year, I wrote a blogspot entitled, Part Samurai, Part Ronin, on that occasion.)
The point, however, is why do I have to think of hedonism today, while his birthday is tomorrow? I don't have an answer for that.
What is hedonism? In very simple terms, it's the pleasure principle (Sigmund Freud would perhaps call it id: his id, ego and superego being associated with pleasure principle, reality pricniple and perfection principle, respectively). Hedonism asserts that pleasure is the highest good; thus, it can be defined as the doctrine that our behavior is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the desire to avoid pain.
The first time I came to know about this word was while reading, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, by Milan Kundera. Kundera often talks of hedonism in his books.
I remember, when I still used to read and post comments frequently in the Marquez yahoo group, in reply to one of the posts there I once refered to Marquez, Kundera and Rushdie as the three major exponents of magic realism. SRC, an even bigger jerk than me from Calcutta (an Enginner with an MBA degree, who was married for a couple of years, and had a young kid, would resign his job with a multinational company within a few years to pursue his passion: writing. I don't know where he is now!), responded by telling that Kundera was, above anything else, a hedonist. I attacked him telling that he read the cover-page of "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" and was quoting from there like a parrot. He was maturally offended; but it did not turn us into enemies. As I can see now, he was just a dedicated Kundera lover and every word that came from Kundera was lifeline for him.
The first time I came to know about this word was while reading, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, by Milan Kundera. Kundera often talks of hedonism in his books.
I remember, when I still used to read and post comments frequently in the Marquez yahoo group, in reply to one of the posts there I once refered to Marquez, Kundera and Rushdie as the three major exponents of magic realism. SRC, an even bigger jerk than me from Calcutta (an Enginner with an MBA degree, who was married for a couple of years, and had a young kid, would resign his job with a multinational company within a few years to pursue his passion: writing. I don't know where he is now!), responded by telling that Kundera was, above anything else, a hedonist. I attacked him telling that he read the cover-page of "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" and was quoting from there like a parrot. He was maturally offended; but it did not turn us into enemies. As I can see now, he was just a dedicated Kundera lover and every word that came from Kundera was lifeline for him.
Brought up with heavy doses of half-cooked Hindu philosophy, I was more used to consider sacrifice as the ultimate virtue. By the time I read Kundera, however, life had taught me that all my principles and thoughts were obsolete, and I was just a complete moron, marooned on a remote island. So naturally, I was very intrigued when I first came across the term, hedonism.
Do we all not look for happiness in life, and try to avoid pain? We all pursue different things in life only to make our life more comfortable at one level or another; all we seek all the time is happiness. We may not have a clear idea as to where where our happiness lies, or what consists our individual happiness; nevertheless, we all pursue it. Maybe that's a part of the machanism in our Genes!
_______________________________________________________________Do we all not look for happiness in life, and try to avoid pain? We all pursue different things in life only to make our life more comfortable at one level or another; all we seek all the time is happiness. We may not have a clear idea as to where where our happiness lies, or what consists our individual happiness; nevertheless, we all pursue it. Maybe that's a part of the machanism in our Genes!
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Kundera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiro_Mifune
Note: Due to momentary lapse of reason, I confused May 1 with April 1, as is evident from this blogspost. Maybe the day for my going fully insane is nearer that I previously thought!
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