Meeting on pleasures, expectations, and contentment

We had our Ideas Cafe discussion tonight.

While I had assumed that we all know about the dulling of our senses as we take pleasure of our indulgences, I did not find much agreement among the group!

Shula disagreed with my use of the word "habituation" to describe our need to escalate our pleasure activities to get the same excitement without boredom, I thought they would at least agree that the escalation exists.

Not so.  They also did not think much of my hypothesis that our pleasure sensation or happiness is a function of how our actual experience compared to our expectation of the event.

For Shula, the pleasure sensation is something that happens in our brain when endorphins are released.  This can be the result of drugs, electrical nerve stimulation or some other event.

Ricki wonders if we can manipulate our expectations to get more contentment and whether it is valid to manipulate expectations internally.  Can we really convince ourselves to expect less?

Not much follow up here either since my earlier hypothesis was not generally accepted.

Robert talked about living for the moment and to accept things as they are for the moment.  Expectations are about the future and as such, do not belong to the moment.

Mike mentioned that our thirst for water builds up over time, quenched by a drink, then builds up again. Same with food and other experiences. 

Dan mentioned that he enjoys his morning coffee everyday and that pleasure is not diminished over the years.

I wonder if this is the relationship between pleasure and boredom.  That for every pleasure, there is a gradual build up of the longing for that pleasure over time (whether it is thirst for water or hunger for food). So long as we sample that pleasure at a long enough interval to build up the desire for the next fix, our senses will not be dulled.

Is it possible that rich people are often bored because they can afford to indulge in pleasures more often than they should?  Maybe they should increase the variety and complexity of their pleasure activities to ensure a longer interval before indulging the same pleasures?

Mano said there is a difference between "consuming" a pleasure versus being a connoisseur and that the consuming experience is very thin.  We were trying to nail down what consuming is and Bob suggested that it may be like only listening to the most popular songs.  In other words, trying to enjoy ourselves by doing what others said are pleasurable rather than trusting our own judgement of what is pleasurable to us.

This opens up the discussion of living according to the expectations of others rather than doing or saying what we want.  Being afraid of not approved or accepted by others.

We talked about a lot of things in many directions, but not what I thought would happen.  But then, I was one of the few who had expectations, others do not seem to have expectations or anticipate things as I do.

Surprise is a good thing and I was surprised.