From the book I am reading

-
"We should distinguish pleasure from happiness. Happiness is understood here to refer to a deep sense of fulfillment, accompanied by a sense of peace and a host of positive qualities such as altruism. Pleasure depends upon the place, the circumstances, and the object of its enjoyment. One can get pleasure at certain times and not at others. It is bound to change. Something that is pleasure at one point might soon give rise to indifference, then to displeasure and suffering. Pleasure exhausts itself in the enjoying, just like a candle that burns down and disappears."

In: Destructive Emotions, p.85.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Someone

-
Image
The architecture of the city is plural and restless. Your voice comes and goes. The sky was pale blue today. White here and there. Clouds. Whispers.  Our dialog is more vivid now. I still see how intense your eyes are. You come and go from me. But I know you never really leave. At least, that is the illusion that keeps me - going? I see patterns. They make sense. Like you made sense a while ago. I can't reason with Love, can I? Love, this palpable, irrational measurement of attachment and desire.  I don't know if you are the same anymore. The same I knew.  Did I ever know you? It doesn't matter because you fit like a symptom fits a disease. You fit my fantasy. My fantasy was so concrete and so tangible. I play us in my head. If I had. If you had. But history doesn't rewrite itself.  I can't walk down the street to try and find you.   Unchanged sea. Under the same sheltering sky. I love you.
Read more

Writing

-
Unresolved pain. Nostalgia. Fire. Vivid dreams at night. Immense love.  I read the other day something an old friend once told me. Go back to what you were good at when you were a child. That's where your natural talent is. I go back, and so many things come up. So many interests. Infinite curiosity. I loved words when I was a child. But I also loved animals and nature. I also loved music and poetry. The beach made me go without sleep. I also loved to dance. I remember attracting people's comments while dancing at parties. Not because I was good but because I did my own thing.  I also liked cooking and baking from an early age. Books were also my private world.  But who am I now, forty years later?  I listen to Riccardo Cocciante, and my heart fills with raw emotion. How can someone be so good and write the most beautiful songs? I need to understand Italian better, but what I know and feel with his songs is beyond anything material.  The power of art has to move...
Read more

Letting you go

-
Sunday Afternoon by Rachael Yamagata. I know it's the right thing to do, but the right thing to do hurts like crazy. I see your presence in my apartment. I see ghosts of you. Messages that I don't want to read. It hit me hard this time. Tuesday morning, I am sitting by the window. It rains. I feel guilty and the wind blows slowly drops of blood. Maybe that's a sign. Someone said: if you like him that much, fight for him. I fought for you. I had you in my hands. I gave you so many opportunities. I gave you so much more than you deserved. It's getting cold. You slapped my face. I cried in your arms. I cried myself to sleep. I couldn't talk anymore. My projects are on hold. I can barely work. I write and I write and the pain doesn't go away.
Read more