Despite a bout with pain today (kidney stones), I’ve been thinking lately about pleasure.
Pleasure has its place (there's a time for everything — Ecc), so be cautious of people who try to universally deny it.
However.... There is something about pleasure that seems to seek perpetuation. You might say, as some do, that it is (or can be) addictive. Observe the things in your life that bring you pleasure and notice the tendency about them that draws you repeatedly back toward them — something like, I want that pleasure again...and again.
Pleasure can have the appearance of expanding you, but it is also possible that it begins to only expand itself. When we are drawn into something, like pleasure, we can also be reducing other things, other kinds of awareness — like replacing fulfillment with satisfaction or a filling of self, rather than others. I have found that many pleasures tend to reduce my overall capacity, in part, because of their addictive appeals. They can tend to narrow my focus or ability to see beyond the objects involved. True capacity seems to be increased more through the denial of self, than through satisfying the self.
It should be noted, that pleasure has many forms — of the mind, of the body, of effort, of the spirit, etc.
Because of the way it has been misused, I am hesitant to join all the naysayers to pleasure. On the other hand, it is also true, that it is so easy to worship an object, rather than a subject.
