"Our So-Called Enjoyment :"
Our So-Called Enjoyment :
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We are living in a fool’s paradise. Our so-called enjoyment has been merely a kind of titillation of the nerves and the sense organs—”a scratching of what itches us”, as it is sometimes said. When the nerves are tickled, it looks as if we are enjoying something, but it is not enjoyment. We are mistaken thoroughly, because after the tickling of the nerves, there is a fall of the strength of the nerves and we feel worse than we were before. After enjoyment, whatever be the nature of the enjoyment, we feel more miserable than before the enjoyment came. We want to cling more and more, so we want more and more repetitions of the same kind of enjoyment—the same contacts, same possessions, same quantity, same songs, etc.
We are under the erroneous notion that the repetition of the tickling of the nerves would be enjoyable, but the nerves will get exhausted by being tickled constantly, and they will go on reacting for some time after they cease their contact with the object. However, we inevitably become old. Old age supervenes and the nerves refuse to react with the same intensity as before, and we cannot enjoy as we did earlier. In fact we did not enjoy even earlier except for the fact that we tickled these nerves in order to create a sensation in the whole system. When we are tickled, we feel happiness.
The whole of our lives has been an attempt to repeat the tickling of these nerves which connect themselves with the different sense organs. We have been mistaking this for real enjoyment, but we have never been satisfied with these enjoyments. We have never been satisfied, because we have never really enjoyed anything—we have been only tantalised. We have only been shown something but never given that thing. The nerves have been fooled, and the sense organs have never understood anything. The mind plays second fiddle to the senses and the organs, and we have been living this kind of foolish life. Yet, we try to understand nature and be happy in this world. Impossible!
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We are living in a fool’s paradise. Our so-called enjoyment has been merely a kind of titillation of the nerves and the sense organs—”a scratching of what itches us”, as it is sometimes said. When the nerves are tickled, it looks as if we are enjoying something, but it is not enjoyment. We are mistaken thoroughly, because after the tickling of the nerves, there is a fall of the strength of the nerves and we feel worse than we were before. After enjoyment, whatever be the nature of the enjoyment, we feel more miserable than before the enjoyment came. We want to cling more and more, so we want more and more repetitions of the same kind of enjoyment—the same contacts, same possessions, same quantity, same songs, etc.
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