Perfecting Pleasure

The art of enjoying yourself without slipping into the misery of excessive hedonism

Be Cheerful, Enjoy Your Life, Unknown Artist, 3rd century BCE

From May 2023 until Thanksgiving 2024, I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol.

Despite having a taste for tequila and partying, this was easy to do for a number of reasons.

The main reason was that I felt myself go from a college student studying and living the high life in Amherst, to some unemployed guy living in his parents’ attic overnight. Don’t get me wrong, I was fine with this free time after school, and not unhappy. I had fun and so much meaningful time with my parents and broader family. Additionally, reading was basically my job, which I wish paid like a tech job (it’s much easier to read The Brothers Karamazov when you have neither work nor class). During this era, I also took a trip to Italy, and more than anything, I went on long walks and thought.

Through my thinking, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to dedicate my life to pursuing excellence at what I enjoy doing most, i.e. writing, learning Spanish, playing sports, and working out. But not all of these are exactly lucrative, and I never had any intention of being a starving artist. So I started looking for jobs in the tech world, which can be exactly lucrative. I landed a role in software sales at athenahealth, where I still work today.

So, when you’re just starting a new job, wanting to save up to move somewhere new, and wanting to make progress in certain intellectual and physical pursuits, what is the worst, dumbest thing you could do? Drink alcohol. That was my reasoning, at least. And I think it was sound reasoning. I’m glad I had that era. I reached personal record after personal record in the gym, got my sales career going, made a bunch of video content, and began writing a novel.

But now that I’m here in Austin, with the habits ingrained, job going well, and the company of a wonderful girlfriend, I’m glad that I’ve loosened up, and had some nights where I enjoy cocktails here and there, mostly while traveling.

As much as I tried not to, it seems I started taking myself too seriously when I didn’t drink at all. And the more time goes on, the more I become convinced that this is the root of so much unnecessary angst.

I didn’t judge people who drank—but at the same time I think part of me did—and I couldn’t help but feel, deep down, a sort of alienation whenever someone else was drinking and I wasn’t. It sometimes led to a kind of loneliness that is hard to explain. I’m not saying this is a reason to drink—and it isn’t for me—I’m just saying it’s a thing. This isn’t high school. Drinking because just because other people are is embarrassing. If you don’t want to, then don’t. Simple. Self-respect.

In my case, I’m sometimes drinking Margaritas and Moscow mules again because…I like Margaritas and Moscow mules. I like the way they taste and the way they make me feel, as well as the way they make laugh when I look into my girlfriend’s eyes, which makes her ask me why I’m laughing, but really I only am because she is so damn hot.

Anyway, the fact is that I’m a bit of an introvert in the sense I always want a few hours alone to read and write every day. It’s like my brain requires that. I enjoy the freedom of solitude. But I’m also a gregarious guy who grew up in a city talking to every type of person and character you could imagine, whose college buddies threw the biggest, most obnoxious parties possible, and who likes to strike up conversations with strangers. And the simple fact is that alcohol makes all of those activities a bit more fun and hilarious.

In other words, it is a great pleasure, and pleasure is an important part of happiness. Which sounds obvious, but I think sometimes the hardcore self-improvement types forget that, as if they forget we have a limited amount of time on this planet.

I think I had forgotten that.

Now, there are always trade-offs. I believe there is an art to knowing how to enjoy pleasure without taking it too far—without being degenerate or decadent or whatever. And that is contextual and depends on a million things. On your biology, on your circumstances, on your history, and more. But in general, there are a few guiding principles that are solid enough to apply to almost anyone. So, what are they? It’s more than just Aristotle’s Golden Mean, although that is a solid start.

It sounds a bit silly, but a good way to think about it is to lean towards being Goggins-esque i.e. being so disciplined that it is almost insane. Imagine it on a spectrum. You have a nightly club-goer or something on one pole and a screaming, marathon-running, David Goggins on the other. Lean towards the latter.

This is easier to do when you know people who’ve done tragic damage to their bodies and relationships through picking up the bottle too many times, that most boring and common of tragedies. Which, by the way, is also rooted in the misconception that the pleasure that comes from alcohol is better than the pleasure of good health, a strong body, and a calm mind. It’s not. Not even close. Without health, you have nothing. There is nothing more idiotic than something else other than health being your top priority. “The greatest of follies is trading health for any other kind of happiness,” said Schopenhauer. Without health, there is no happiness.

It is also easy to lean towards being Goggins-esque if you just remember how much pain hangovers or weed panic attacks or whatever cause. As Seneca said, “so-called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments.” Fact. If you’re a slave to pleasure, you’re not as different as someone locked in a prison as you might think. This is why the minds and bodies and souls of excessive hedonists wither. It is why some become deluded drunks who cause destruction to themselves and others around them, thinking up is down and left is right.

On top of leaning towards the hardcore physical discipline side of the spectrum, you can also consider the value of Eastern Indifference. That is, the idea that a wise man feels neither hot nor cold, because he is beyond pain and pleasure. This is, of course, an ideal, but it is helpful nonetheless. I don’t want to sound “woo-woo,” but if you meditate enough, you will understand how little you need “pleasures of the flesh.” The mind trained in meditation does not need concerts or crazy nights out when it can experience as much ecstasy by simply looking up at the sky.

With all that said, I’m reminded of something I read somewhere once: that a lot of what we call philosophy is just people trying to justify their own actions. I think that definitely applies to me, especially in this essay. It helps to think out loud though.

Cheers.

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