You might think it foolish, if not irresponsible, to be talking about pleasure at a time like this. The International Panel on Climate Change has just announced we are at a tipping point of global heating and extreme climate change from which there will be no return. If life on earth is about to radically change, what does anything matter?
But responsibility is the ability to respond and my response is to double down on pleasure. As I discuss in aah . . . The Pleasure Book, it is our denial of the pleasure imperative and our ignorance about what truly brings us satisfaction that has brought us to this perilous point. Like meal worms in a sack of flour, we are consuming ourselves into oblivion and poisoning ourselves on our toxic waste. The problem, in other words, is our out-of-control, human appetite.
There is nothing wrong with wanting things. As pleasure-seeking organisms, desire is as fundamental to our existence as wind is to a sailboat. Without desire, there is no movement; without movement, there is no life. The issue is what we desire. As the saying goes, you can never get enough of what you don’t need. Many of the things we buy and consume are empty pleasures. Like junk food, they lack nutritional value and leave us hungry for more. In my opinion, the only way to control the human appetite is to satisfy it and the only thing capable of satisfying it is high-quality, renewable pleasure.
Each of us is responsible for our own appetite and the pleasures we pursue—that is our superpower and our curse. No leader or technological breakthrough can save us from ourselves. Blaming, shaming, and finger pointing is a meaningless distraction. There is no victim here. The only question is whether we (you and I) will accept our personal responsibility for the pleasures we seek and their environmental consequences . . . or not? The science is clear: we must radically pivot or it’s game over for the great human experiment.
As for me, I have begun writing my second book, working title, aah . . . The Pleasure Handbook: A practical guide to personal and planetary transformation. If you feel inspired to take part in the development of this book—as a reader, sounding board, or co-creator—you are most welcome. Please contact me at: hello@drjiamd.com.
The time is nigh!
