The Pleasure Pursuit... [Part 2/2]

This is the second part of a two-part series. Read the previous part here: Pain and Suffering - It's role and purpose in our life!

We live in a world of information overflow. Yet we find ourselves in pursuit of answers to the most fundamental life questions. Recently in news, Siya Kakkar, a young very talented TikTok star (like Sushant Singh Rajput, Anthony Bordain, Kate Spade, and Robin Williams), chose to end her life. As more names are added to this list, we seldom pause long enough to think through about why this happens. Or how can something go wrong so horribly in someone’s life and no one even gets to know about it?

These are powerful questions that demand answers at both experiential and intellectual levels at the same time. C. S. Lewis said, “Nothing is so self-defeating as a question that has not been fully thought through until it has been fully posed.” One might answer in an off-the-cuff manner, “There are factors like stress, loneliness, and depression.” However, these questions ultimately pick up speed and lodge themselves in our heart’s genuine search for meaning, belongingness, and relationship (both vertically and horizontally). 

Point number one - The most lethal disease of our time, spreading like a wildfire, despite access to all the information, is ''meaninglessness.'' King Solomon, who reigned from c. 970–931 BCE over Israel, was a quintessential representative of wisdom and success in his time. Hearing of the king's fame, the Queen of Sheba once visited Jerusalem and at the end of the visit said to him, "Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard." Despite such a reputation, in the book of Ecclesiastes, he describes meaninglessness something like this:

'I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?”

I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees.

I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well-the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this, my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. 

My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."

The three key phrases in the entire passage are the last three words - "under the sun", "everything was meaningless,", and that all he had accomplished was like "a chasing after the wind." He said this despite acquiring fame, wealth, success, pleasure, and all that his eyes desired. G. K. Chesterton, an English writer and philosopher, summarized this perfectly when he said, "Meaninglessness doesn't come from being weary of pain and suffering, instead of being weary of pleasure." It is in our nature to avoid pain and suffering and gravitate toward pleasure. But without limits, the momentary feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment culminates into emptiness and meaninglessness. 

Point number two - The pursuit of truth, and not pleasure, is the ultimate act that reveals answers to the most fundamental questions of life. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel prize acceptance speech, he said, "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality." Similarly, Winston Churchill once said, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Probably the only assertion on which this great statesman and his nemesis Adolf Hitler might have agreed. Although Churchill said it in the context of warfare and espionage, the essence of the message applies to our life as well.

Two important perspectives of these renowned men: ''unarmed truth'' will have the final word in reality and the ''value of truth'' is indispensable for a meaningful existence. When we look at the post-modernistic world around today, unfortunately, truth is found to be the most violated concept. Truth, which by nature is ''exclusive,'' is no more considered so. The post-modern world taught us that we define the ''self.'' It gave us the autonomy to form our humanistic definitions based on our feelings. Today, it is no longer ''The Truth'' but ''Your Truth'' and ''My Truth'' based on our feelings. 

Post-modernity empowered us to question anything; but at the same time, we lost the answers to everything. The violation of this one concept has redefined the meaning of life. When we redefined the TRUTH, we allowed the ceiling of CERTAINTY to fall and make life MEANINGLESS. 

The three very real issues with which we define life. What is Truth? What does my life mean? And, most important of all, how can I be certain of the answers that I cling too? 

As relativism sinks deeper in our post-modern minds, we are facing a crisis where the youngest among us are the loneliest. That's the contradiction and sociological dilemma we live in!

Point number three (and I will end this long piece with it) - Pluralism is a great idea, but when left unchecked, gives rise to relativism where there is no dominant world view forming the foundations of our culture. Such a pluralized mentality creates systemic contradictions in life, leaving behind questions with no answers and a life falling apart despite having access to all pleasures that success and money can buy!

I'll end by quoting lyrics from a song called - 21st Century Schizoid Man

"Cat's foot iron claw

Neuro-surgeons scream for more

At paranoia's poison door

Twenty-first schizoid man.

Blood rack barbed wire

Politicians' funeral pyre

Innocents raped with napalm fire

Twenty-first-century schizoid man.

Death seed blind man's greed

Poets' starving children bleed

Nothing he's got he really needs

Twenty-first schizoid man."