On The Inexorable Inevitability of Hedonic Tendency

It seems so fallacious of me to feel sadness at this particular little thing; I am educated of its cause, and I’m well aware of what personal inclination I might be leaning on to exclaim my distress towards it; yet still, it disturbs me so much that that what I hate about it, it employs to make me hate it in turn: its inherent irrationality.

I am speaking, of course, of human hedonic tendency; of our inexorably ineludible drift to committing ourselves to those actions which complement our basest passions and feelings. By its very nature, it scares me; after all, its ever so default nature means that a man with little external and rationally conceived motive would be led towards it, out of naught but nature’s prescribed course of action for him, and he would be fed and kept happy so long as he followed suit.

While all of this is known, what especially irks me in this matter is that the interests of the appetitive are continually opposed to the interests of a truth-seeker; at their best, hedonically driven actions are a distraction and a mere hindrance, but at their worst, they can altogether deviate a man from purer, more human motive.

However, still worse than this is that I find that these motives are profiteers of opportunity; they offer too straightforward a path to turn to such that the most immovable man, in his darkest hours, simply must turn to them.

Moreover, in our society, where we consider tyrannically unwavering positivity to be the platonic, gold standard and consider it the most initial prerequisite for a happy life, this man is more or less directed, and in certain cases, via peer pressure and societal norm, enforced to adhere to that principle of naïve joy; and under so much duress to maintain happiness, which path to him would be simpler than the one that hedonic action offers?

The Basis Of Hedonism

And, if in these dark times of his, when he’s compelled to laugh, yet finds a lack of humour in his routine of inquisition and learning, then even if he rejects hedonic action on principle, with so much compulsion can it overpower him that he is forced to turn to it with no more will than an alcoholic on his eighth glass.

Regardless of how much he knew about the science of its conception and growth, regardless of his awareness of its inheritance to his species and to natural will; it still overpowers him.

And that’s just depressing, isn’t it?

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