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Is there anything wrong with pleasure?
If human actions can be noble, shameful or indifferent, the same happens with the corresponding pleasures.








An anxious search
"He sought pleasure, and in the end, he found it -says C. S. Lewis in his autobiography".

"But right away I discovered that pleasure (that or any other) was not what I was looking for. And I thought I was making a mistake, although it was not, of course, because of moral issues; At that time, I was as immoral as a man can be in these matters".

"The frustration was not to have found a creeping pleasure instead of a high one. ' It was the little value of the conclusion that watered the party. The dogs had lost track. He had caught the wrong prey. Offering a lamb chop to a man who is dying of thirst is the same as offering sexual pleasure to the one who wants what I am describing.

It's not that I turned away from the erotic experience by saying no! My feelings were: well, I see, but have not we deviated from our goal?

"The real desire was going as if saying: what does this have to do with me?"



This is how C. S. Lewis describes his errors and hesitations in the search for happiness. The pleasure route had proved fruitless. For years he had been tracking down the wrong track: "When I finished building a temple for him, I discovered that the god of pleasure was gone."

However, within a few seconds of giving in to that seduction, the deception is proven. It proves that it did not satiate as promised, which has again deceived us, which offered much more than it has given us. We kept the trail up close, but we lost it again.


Just a little review of classical literature to see that this anxious pursuit of sexual pleasure is not too original. In the life of very old people, it is seen that they had already exhausted their possibilities, that on the other hand, they do not give much more of themselves. The attraction of sex is undeniable, certainly, but the repertoire is exhausted soon, however much change the scenery.

Pleasure and happiness
There are clear notes of the distinction between the pleasure of happiness: happiness has a vocation to stay; pleasure, no. Pleasure is often fleeting; happiness is lasting.
Pleasure affects a small sector of our corporeality, while happiness affects the whole person.
Pleasure is exhausted in itself and ends up creating an addiction that leads to circumstances that further narrow one's freedom; happiness, no.
Pleasures, by themselves, do not guarantee any happiness; they need a thread that one, giving them a meaning.
The satisfactions momentary and invertebrates they disorganize life, fragment, and they end up atomizing it.
Quevedo insisted on the importance of treating the body "not as one lives for him, that is foolishness; nor as one who lives for him, which is a crime; but as someone who cannot live without him. Support him, dress him and send him, it would be an ugly thing to send you who was born to serve you".
For his part, Aristotle assured that to do good is necessary to strive to keep the passions inadequate or extemporaneous, because the great moral victories are not improvised, but are the result of a multitude of small victories obtained in the Detail of everyday life.
Happiness comes before us With their laws, With that serene stubbornness with which it presents, Once and for all, the unwavering reality.

Avoid pleasure?
Pleasure and pain have an undeniable prominence in the life of any man, always condition their decisions in some way.
- But neither pleasure nor pain is bad or good in itself.
Indeed. The bad thing is to let yourself be overcome by pleasure or pain.
The bad thing is to act badly for enjoying pleasure or to avoid pain.
You can feel pleasure without being happy, and you can also be happy in the midst of pain. Hence the need, said Plato, to have been educated from a young age to know when and how to suffer or enjoy because as there are noble actions and unworthy actions, we can say that there are noble pleasures and undignified pleasures. The adequacy of conduct to this criterion is the subject of moral education.

The toll of resignation
There are many things that man desires, and to reach each of them must renounce others, even if that resignation hurts. Aristotle said that there is nothing that can always be pleasant to me.
Any election entails an exclusion. That is why it is important to correct when you choose, without too much fear of resignation, because behind the attractive is not always happiness. Both pleasure and happiness are always associated with resignation.
Nor is the solution in the suppression of all desire, because without desires the life of man would cease to be proper human. Man is humanized when he learns to endure the adverse, to abstain from what can be done but should not be done. This is the price that must pay our inexorable tendency to happiness if we want to achieve what is possible in this life.


The sensible thing is to let yourself be driven by reason so as not to be frightened by the pain nor let yourself be caught by pleasure.
Just as keeping health requires a certain effort but thanks to him you feel much better, chastity strengthens the interior of a man and gives him deep satisfaction. When it is not yielded to sexual selfishness, one attains a greater maturity in the love, in which the chastity sublimates the intensity of the feelings. There is a transparent light in the eyes and a radiant joy in the face, which gives a very special appeal.


And there are usually too many prohibitions on sexual ethics?
So far we have only talked about prohibitions, but rather a positive model and lifestyle.
On the other hand, although the key to ethics is not prohibitions, it cannot be forgotten that all ethics imply mandates and prohibitions. Each prohibition safeguards and ensures certain values, which in this way are protected and made more accessible. These prohibitions, if they are right, widen the spaces of freedom of values important to man.
Morality cannot be seen as a simple and cold regulation that alibis, much less as a mere code of sins and obligations.
The demands of morality invigorate the person, help him to his fullest development, to his most authentic freedom.








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