{"id":137,"date":"2011-05-04T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T12:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/?p=137"},"modified":"2015-07-20T00:35:42","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T00:35:42","slug":"a-man-in-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/?p=137","title":{"rendered":"A MAN IN WHITE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n<\/span><\/b>By: Lida Prypchan<\/span><\/b>
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\n<\/span>Man spends his days chasing after balls or hares, and that is the pleasure even of kings. \u00a0(Pascal)<\/i><\/span>
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\n<\/span>If we analyzed everyday life with more objectivity, we would discover that there are many simple pleasures we don\u2019t take into account when we weigh pleasant things against pain. \u00a0Simple pleasures such as being thirsty and finding water; being hungry and finding a bowl of soup; needing to urinate halfway through a trip and getting home in time; having an urgent need to defecate when waiting at the bank and finding the restrooms. \u00a0These last two mundane pleasures are taboo because of our unexpressed belief that, although we do those things, we don\u2019t mention them, much less reveal the need to do them. \u00a0However, they are among the most essential aspects of each human being\u2019s life. \u00a0It\u2019s curious that in the Encyclopedia Britannica there is no entry for the term \u201cscatology,\u201d only for its etymological relative \u201ceschatology,\u201d i.e., the one that refers to the study of the doctrines dealing with the end of the world.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>A man called Schurij dealt with this theme and wrote four books on it: one dealing with urine, one with bile, one with perspiration and the other with feces. \u00a0The book about perspiration doesn\u2019t attract me in the least. \u00a0I\u2019m content with the memory of the occasional violinists I have come across who certainly radiated an unmistakable and indescribable orchestral air of that nature.\u00a0<\/span>
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\n<\/span>Pleasure and pain, like other simple ideas, can be neither described nor defined. \u00a0Experience is the only road that leads to knowledge about them. \u00a0Pleasures are neither good nor bad, since pleasure in itself is morally indifferent. \u00a0What could be classified as good or bad are the consequences of pleasure. \u00a0Instead of using judgmental terms such as \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad,\u201d it would be preferable to substitute \u201cinferior\u201d or \u201csuperior\u201d for them, because they are, in effect, pleasures of an inferior nature and others of a superior nature. \u00a0Hundreds of years ago the Chinese wrote in the I Ching, \u201cTrue happiness should spring from one\u2019s inner being. \u00a0But when one is empty inside, to the point of abandoning oneself to the attractions of the outside world, illusory happiness asserts itself from without. \u00a0This is what many call entertainment. \u00a0Those who, because of a lack of inner strength, feel the need for distraction will always find a way to entertain themselves. \u00a0Due to the emptiness of their nature, they will always act as a vacuum for outside pleasures, becoming even more lost. \u00a0In this case it is no longer a question of bad luck, misfortune or calamity. \u00a0They have lost control of their lives and whatever awaits them now depends on chance and external influences.\u201d \u00a0One has to bow one\u2019s head before such wisdom, because unfortunately in this century spiritual matters are of the least importance – the pace of life doesn\u2019t seem to allow for them. \u00a0One has such a struggle just for material survival, that the little time remaining is dedicated to effortless pleasure.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>I have been gradually getting away from my real objective, which was to write about the relationship between pleasure and alcoholism. \u00a0Two factors are fundamental: social conditioning and the search for pleasure, although pain should not be eliminated as a motive for drinking. \u00a0It\u2019s a difficult chain to break, because the interests created by drinking generate such exorbitant profits. \u00a0The media respond to those interests because they translate into enormous profits for them too. \u00a0There may not be much to eat in a house, but there\u2019s certainly a television and, who knows, maybe a VCR too, so people waste all their free time watching programs and commercials where there\u2019s a girl dressed in black with white shoes getting out of a white car with a black chauffeur, and a man dressed in a white suit with black shoes who comes to pick her up. \u00a0Together they sit at a little table in the moonlight, while a blond man in a black tuxedo serves them a drink of the finest distilled whisky and she touches his hand and looks at him seductively, and at this moment the man dressed in white tastes his drink, throws out his chest and gives a roar like a lion, then stands up, takes the girl by the arm and gives her a kiss that leaves her in a daze. \u00a0Since the lady of the house has seen on TV how servant girls can make big leaps in rank if the right man falls in love with them, she is sure to swallow the whole commercial.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Lida Prypchan Man spends his days chasing after balls or hares, and that is the pleasure even of kings. \u00a0(Pascal) If we analyzed everyday life with more objectivity, we would discover that there are many simple pleasures we don\u2019t take into account when we weigh pleasant things against pain. \u00a0Simple pleasures such as being … <\/p>\n

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