The Pleasure Principle

Alegria

Over the last few years a compliment I often received was on my ability to stay focused on particular problems, and my ability to go deep into a few subjects¹. I don’t want to write to show off or try to sound like I have the perfect answer as to how anyone can stay focused and interested in something, or even try to blow myself up as being a guru that, for some reason, considers himself worthy of giving advice. I’m only 22, what do I know? I haven’t won any big prizes, or achieved incredible success; in fact I have failed many times, probably more than the average person my age. But I am proud of my ability to stay focused and resilient, and even though I don’t think I’m the smartest person in the world, I have been able to keep up or be on the same wavelength as people that I admire very much; the failures ended up teaching me lessons which lead to achievements I’m proud of. I don’t want to pretend like this is not the case or be fake humble; what I lack in raw intelligence or discipline I have been able to more than make up for through obsessive interest. I consider this my greatest strength, and it has served me very well. So I wanted to write about this, since I’ve also often heard how ‘amazing’ my work ethic is. I never considered it amazing, and I honestly consider myself extremely undisciplined. I am totally unable to force myself to do things I don’t enjoy.

I should also probably mention that throughout this post I might be coming off a bit arrogant or as a smartass. Maybe I am, but I only have my subjective experience to judge through, and I have learnt certain things which I am very sure of - perhaps that will change in the future, and one day I’ll reread this and cringe at myself. For now, though, I think the best thing I can do is be honest about certain things that worked for me. Maybe they will be different for you.

The key point for laser-focus is to live in a way which maximises pleasure. Seriously, that’s it. Just find what you love and do it as much as possible. Then working will be easy, because it’ll be fun.

I used to find statements like this cringe. Pleasure? We are men, we don’t have time for that kind of stuff. You just gotta force yourself to do things sometimes, and you have to persevere through pain to get to the top of the mountain. No matter how difficult it gets you just have to push through, don’t complain, stay disciplined and force yourself to be better: the pursuit of pleasure is empty, and it’s just hedonism; there are things which are much more important and worth doing. Just keep grinding.

If you’ve read enough Nietzsche or Marcus Aurelius or David Goggins or Jordan Peterson or Berserk or whatever ‘redpilled’ male influencer then you probably agree with the claim above. That kind of philosophy is also now popular for young men on Instagram, grindset, just lock in, Stoic Bro just Read Meditations for the Hundredth Time and Bro It’s So Fucking Good Really Changed My Perspective On Shit, you know the vibe. To be fair I don’t think it’s entirely wrong. But it’s completely missing the point of being alive: what’s the point of doing anything if it isn’t fun? Staying disciplined for the sake of ‘achieving greatness’ or something is definitely worth doing, but I feel like it’s easy to take this a bit too far, and forget why you’re expending so much effort in the first place. Then you’re just ‘grinding’ for the sake of some future version of yourself, without really enjoying what you’re doing on a daily basis, which doesn’t sound like something I’d want to look back on when I’m on my deathbed.

The key aspect to emphasise here is that there are two different kinds of pleasure: hedonic and epicurean. Hedonic pleasure is, indeed, empty, and just gets boring after a while - try it if you don’t believe me. You can go to a bunch of parties, hook up with random people, take drugs, whatever, and in the moment those activities are definitely very fun, and are still really fun to do once in a while. But if you don’t have a deeper source of joy or pleasure, then all this stuff will quickly become dreadful, and you will feel completely empty and useless. I am speaking from experience.

Epicurean pleasure is a bit different. Its goal is to seek sustainable pleasure through the state of ataraxia and aponia, tranquility, freedom from fear, and absence of bodily pain. Actively seeking out this kind of state inevitably leads you to staying focused, because whatever you’re doing just becomes fun - you enter a state of play, which is extremely addictive. Then you don’t even need to stay disciplined, because you’re so in love with what you’re doing that not doing the activity just feels boring. And you enter a positive feedback loop: you keep going because you enjoy it, it feels like you’re a kid again. And once you get to that point, you’re good, and never have to think about the ‘grindset’ ever again.

A good example to consider here is Kobe, who was known for his incredible dedication and work ethic. Keep in mind that this praise comes from other NBA players, which means that they’re all people who’ve achieved near-transcendental levels of skill in their game, and are in the top 0.01% of all basketball players in the entire world - so they’re definitely not slouches, either.

Kobe has been my favorite basketball player since I first started watching games, and he remains one of my biggest idols for his relentless dedication. He spoke at length about how he wasn’t the fastest or strongest player, and not the tallest; while Michael Jordan’s hands were big enough to easily palm balls, Kobe didn’t have any outstanding physical traits. He just had more drive than anyone else in the league, and he ended up getting five rings. How did he stay so focused and dedicated over decades of extremely intense play?

He was incredibly, mind-blowingly in love with basketball. I suspect that the only thing he loved more than basketball was his family, and even there, I might be wrong. He even made a movie about it to express this - basketball was his greatest joy, and this deep love for his craft was what made him continue returning, over and over, despite all the challenges and frustrations and difficulties of being a professional NBA player.

The same thing is true of anyone who does great work: they love what they do, deeply. The point of life for people like this is based around a pleasure principle: find what you love, and then just do it as much as possible. You will never need to force yourself, or at least you won’t need to force yourself much - it might be annoying or hard to get started on something or to go to practice, but that’s the hardest part. Once you get started you fall back into the state of natural liberty, and just kind of flow into the work. Even if you get lazy and don’t do it for some amount of time, you’ll probably start hearing some internal alarm bells going off, because you will feel like you are not doing anything useful. Paul Graham wrote about something similar, comparing it to running: you might not necessarily enjoy putting down the fun-in-the-moment activity to go running, but once you spend enough time sitting on the couch, you’ll start feeling like shit, anyway, which should force you to get back to whatever it is you should be doing.

Doing what you love is also the only way to realistically persevere through difficulties which will inevitably arise in whatever you choose. Anything worth doing becomes challenging at some point; unless you’re in love with the activity, or at least find it very fun, then you will quit. I’m sure that there are some people with the unique ability to persevere regardless, and I used to look at them with reverence; now I kind of just look at them with confusion. Unless you absolutely have to, why would you keep doing something that sucks?

I don’t want to sound naive or tone-deaf here: I obviously recognise that the large majority of people are forced into mindless, arduous, boring labour, which they have to do every single day, because otherwise they can’t pay the bills. Unfortunately, not everyone has the opportunity to pursue something they love. But to the extent that you do - and if you’re reading this, you probably have ample opportunity - do it! You only get one shot, this is game 7, and it’s going to be over before you know it.

Finding what you love is difficult, and I don’t want to sound like ‘Eat Pray Love’; I’m not advocating for you to drop everything and suddenly spend all your time reading Buddhist books, and I’m also not advocating to spend a summer backpacking in India instead of taking the internship which can help you get ahead. What I’m trying to say is that to the extent you can, you must actively seek out joy; it doesn’t just come on its own, but comes as a result of putting in some effort to search for what it is that really makes you feel like life is worth living. It’s probably the most important thing you’ll ever do, since your career is your best chance at making something you are genuinely proud of.² The best way to find something worth doing is to read a lot.³

It’s also difficult to tell when exactly you’ve found the right thing, because usually something becomes more fun as you become better at it, and that can take a long time; so it’s entirely possible that you accidentally spend a bunch of time on something which doesn’t end up being your thing. But it’s better to try and fuck up, than to keep doing something which is just average.

The pleasure I’m talking about is very deep, because it should be strong enough to balance out doubt, failure, and anxiety. Anyone doing anything worth pursuing inevitably starts questioning what they’re doing, and why; it’s never a smooth ride all the way through. But it should be captivating and fascinating enough that you find yourself unable to live without it.

The best part of living this way - according to the pleasure principle - is that your activities start feeling like a dance. You consciously enter a state of free play; you’re returning to the pure state of mind you had as a child. It’s hard for me to think of a goal more worth pursuing, and an additional nice benefit of this is that it reduces your anxiety over the future. Maybe you won’t become the next Great, maybe you will, who knows? Regardless whatever you’re doing will be interesting, difficult and fun enough to keep you focused on it in the moment, and your perspective shifts from ‘I’ll probably never make it, I’m so far away from my goals,’ to ‘What can I do today to improve a little bit today?’. I’ve found that changing this time scale in your perception makes life much easier to live.

The way I’m describing everything makes it sound easy. It’s definitely not easy, and it might take a lot of failure and trial and error and whatever. But it is very simple. Just find something, and dedicate yourself to it, fully - make yourself proud. That’s it.

1. Although a corollary to this is that it is basically impossible for me to do something that I am bored in, to a pathetic extent sometimes. I am often unable to figure out very basic logistic things because they are boring. And this leads to some annoying consequences, quite often.

2. So the two most important decisions you’ll ever make are what you love and who you love.

3. But not too much - consider your ratio of creation/consumption. Although reading is extremely valuable, doing it too much and just being proud of how many books you’ve read is a trap. Reading more books will help you learn, and it might make you a bit smarter, but you should never read anything for the sake of saying that you read it. It’s also easy to get into the mode of being a passive absorber of information: are you just repeating things someone else wrote down, or are you really thinking? Reading can also give you the false impression of being intelligent because you can recite the right passwords in the right settings: e.g. ‘yeah, I love that author, he wrote this and this and this, see I read so many books, the same ones as you! So I’m part of the smart group, right?’ This is a very attractive honeypot. But you have to reflect on what you’re reading and to really understand - otherwise you just become a parrot, albeit a sophisticated one, at best.