The Bar Scene

As Henry David Thoreau commented, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Let us note that he wrote this outside of any specific context, and in the most general terms. He was not placing judgment on particular men in particular situations. He was rather only observing a phenomenon that we modern men are already too familiar with. Human beings are everywhere miserable. We hide it as best we can, but sadly even our bursts of passion are colored by an abject and pervasive suffering.

Although this is said quite aptly by Thoreau, the misery of mankind is not a new phenomenon. As we are all very aware of (or damn well should be), Buddhism cites as the very first "noble truth" that life itself is suffering. Everywhere, everyone is in pain. Everywhere, everyone is suffering!

How is it that we human beings manage to cope with this devastating state of affairs? Here, we have recourse to the inimitable Tolstoy. He writes, "If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state".

Miserable grouches that we are, we find recourse in drink and dance and song and sex, dimming our consciences and our consciousness both, dancing the nights away and slowly forgetting that we ever dreamed of a life without suffering. If we did not do all this, we would surely shoot ourselves, for to live contrary to one's reason is not merely intolerable, it is certainly unbearable.

And so, despite ourselves, we consciously pursue the clouding of our minds, and we call it fun and we call it pleasure. And even when we are hard pressed for our true opinions, we say the same: we say that it is fun and we say that it is pleasant. Is it pleasant to deaden one's reason? Is it fun to cloud one's mind for the sole purpose of forgetting one's own misery?

In Thoreau's words, "A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work". Then, do we masses not enjoy our pleasure because we have not worked for it? What kind of patronizing bullshit folk wisdom is that! We work hard for our pleasure, and we deserve it! We labor for endless hours during the week, persevering always to do what must be done, and some asshole who lived in the woods 150 years ago says we don't work hard enough? Well fuck him!

Except that's just the point: we slave away at our jobs, day in and day out, suffering every moment, waiting for Friday to come so that we might enjoy our lives just a little bit. But when the day finally comes, we have spent so much time suffering that we have forgotten how to enjoy life. We drink alcohol and we listen to loud music, we tell loud jokes and we laugh even louder. We spend so much time suppressing our urge to enjoy life that when Friday comes, it must be coaxed out of its hiding place through drink and dance. And so, we "let loose" and "have fun", all the while mistaking this release of the suppressed desire for pleasure for pleasure itself.

We say that it is fun because it is fun, that is, because we don't remember what fun really is. We say that it is pleasant because it is pleasant, that is, because we don't remember what pleasure really is. And one day there will come a reckoning for each of us, in which we faintly recall a desire we once had for something better. But then, it will be too late.