Meaning vs pleasure
jasonleow • 11 May 2025 •
When a man can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure. - Victor Frankl
Victor Frankl’s quote is common enough. But did you know of the inverse:
When a man can’t find a deep sense of pleasure, they distract themselves with meaning. - @ChrisWillx
So true.
I struggle with pleasure. It feels distracting. So I throw myself into meaning. But it’s not either/or. What’s the pointing of meaning if you can’t take some pleasure in the world and experiences given to you?
Every day I wake up torn between a desire to enjoy the world and a desire to improve the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. - E. B. White
There’s so many lives out there to live out. So many songs to play.
I’ve leaned so much towards improving the world in my last two decades. Time to balance things out a bit!
WOW! A couple of great quotes! I can definitely relate to this. In fact, at one point I thought the right thing to do was to say no to pleasure of any kind because it was “worldly” and distracts from spiritual growth. Whenever I caught myself thinking “this tastes good” or hear someone say: “this tastes good!” I would stop eating, thinking that I’ve fallen in a demonic trap.
I later realized that my attitude towards pleasure was unhealthy and plain wrong. There is no dichotomy between pleasure and meaning, provided the pleasure is aligned with our well-being. Even connecting with our physical bodies is often dismissed by those seeking spiritual growth/enlightenment, but they disconnect from a crucial part of themselves.
There are many ways we unnecessarily punish ourselves. 🥲