Hedonism By Any Other Name
This is a follow-up to a video on Hedonism that you can watch here if you need an introduction to the subject.
There are many forms of Hedonism but the one that I personally practice is Neelian Hedonism, named after myself simply because nothing else describes this from what I’ve read. This form of hedonism is not built on a seek/avoid dichotomy of pleasure and pain. Neelian Hedonism is based on the truth that the human condition includes a certain degree of unavoidable suffering and pain that must be undergone to receive pleasure. There is a dual nature to all things that allows the very concept of them to exist. For example: hot cannot exist without cold, even your ideas of what is hot could not exist unless you had knowledge of what is cold. Pleasure cannot be known without pain and they often come as an inseparable duo in our most human moments. More than that, pain is often a requirement to experience a pleasing outcome. A woman undergoing painful child birth for the outcomes of holding her healthy baby and creating a family is a perfect example of this.
Many things that cause pleasure have an element of pain ingrained in them as well, so one cannot truly avoid pain. We might delay or ignore it, but it is never averted completely. All forms of hedonism hinge on personal ideas of pain and pleasure in the mind of the hedonist. For me there is no greater pain than boredom and numbness, so then all of life’s offerings become pleasurable. Because the only pain would come from not having experiences and the emotions that come with them, I am able to derive pleasure from a much wider array of experiences. This basis for hedonism allows for both short term and long term pleasure to be consistently felt as well as be found in nearly 100% of all of life’s situations, even if only in retrospect.
Disregarding the seek/avoid systems employed in other types of hedonism allows us to create a system where pleasure is only limited by one’s beliefs. Instead of closing yourself off to certain things or feelings, Neelian Hedonism calls for the creation of pleasure and happiness using pain. By exploring our beliefs on what is actually painful to us (vs merely having a painful process) we can actually reduce the amount of pain we feel overall.
What may repel some people from this form of hedonism are:
1. The need to accept the “grayness” of all existence instead of thinking in black and white terms because all things in existence hold both good and bad aspects. You cannot be avoidant to the unknown or “negative” things in life and practice this form of philosophy as you would be held back from escaping the seek/avoid dichotomy by your own fears and beliefs.
2. The masochism required to appreciate that which is suffering-dominant or to indulge in things that are painful first with pleasing results.
3. The need to be dedicated to changing your mind so that you can expand your personal criteria of pleasure while shrinking your criteria of pain.
The key to this philosophy working in practice is a core desire of wanting to live a life or be a person that cannot be destroyed by a little suffering. As someone with complex PTSD that is one of my major motivations and the main source of energy I use to do the work required to practice this philosophy. Committing to a lifestyle that forces you to have an open-mind as well as study, experiment, and re-frame your past constantly is too tall an order for many. Understandably so, as most people have not lived a life where they were grateful to feel pain because it was a sign of life. However, having the experiences of finding ways to enjoy suffering and finding things to enjoy in the midst of agony is necessary for creating all types of strength. With a core philosophy that allows me to reduce the amount of pain I feel by changing my point of view on events, I able to seek pleasure far more deeply and consistently than most hedonistic people.
