VACATION THOUGHTS
Until last year, I never took any vacations. Looking back, I'm not sure why. Maybe it was a strange kind of laziness. I didn't want to go to the trouble of arranging things. I was busy at work and a vacation would have made it harder. But there was something else: I think I suffered from some form of hedonophobia, the fear of pleasure. Many times in my life I've found myself resisting situations I might enjoy. I always thought it might be a phobia, an irrational and intense fear of something, but I didn't think of hedonophobia. I used to think I was afraid of people, of crowds, of failure but I've noted that I can deal calmly with people and crowds and that I'm not afraid of trying new things. I've been drawn to the conclusion that I must be afraid of pleasure.
Phobias come from some combination of inheritance and conditioning. In trying to identify the possible cause of fear of pleasure I've thought about relatives, about situations in my life, about things that might lead to this fear. I certainly can identify relatives who had little pleasure in their lives so maybe they passed along a phobia. I can't identify any situations in my life where pleasure led to bad consequences but there must have been some. Perhaps I was distracted by fun and didn't complete some school project or having fun made me ignore courtesy to someone. I'm not sure but, whatever the cause, I think I've suffered from this phobia.
From what I've read, the cure for phobias is confronting the object of fear. You need some amount of preparation and you need to be sure that the confrontation doesn't create danger and thus enhance the phobia but you need contact with the object of fear. Looking at hedonophobia, then, the cure is obvious: I need to enjoy myself, to take pleasure. This year I've taken one vacation already and have two more to go. In this year, I'll spend more time on vacations than I spent in the 35 years from graduation from school to last year combined. I'm confronting my fear and, although late in life to do so, I hope I will overcome it.
We all need pleasure. Pleasure keeps us going, it gives us purpose, it's the reward for jobs well-done, it's the just reward for being a good person. So enjoy things. I've said before that serious doesn't mean grim. We can enjoy ourselves even when we're pursuing the most serious of purposes. I'm not urging a life of frivolity, of stepping on others in the pursuit of pleasure, of selfishly subordinating the feelings of other to our own pleasure. I merely urge seeking pleasure in all situations. Enjoy yourself and don't be afraid of vacations.
4-28-03
Home Page 2003 Archives 2002 Archives 2001 Archives 2000 Archives 1999 Archives