LICKING OUR ICE CREAM

When things are going well, most people don't pause to dissect their wellness. But there are those -- from behaviorists to philosophers -- who aren't satisfied just licking the ice cream. They want to know what makes it so lick-able before it melts...

Some of us are like that, even at the cost of missing some of licks. And so some of us have charted a hierarchy of human pleasure that's open for consideration. In ascending order: Contentment; Happiness; Serenity: Joy. Between licks, maybe you'll agree with a few of these arbitrary distinctions.

Contentment refers to a state of satisfaction. That opens up a fairly broad range of examples. Breaking 80 in golf... watching your home team win the big one...getting a raise at work....enjoying your garden re-bloom every spring.

Happiness is usually a notch up. More a state of palpable pleasure. Finding the mate of your dreams...giving birth to your children...up-scaling your way of life...being publicly honored by your peers.

Serenity can be understood as a state of enormous tranquillity. Reaching a long-sought goal...finding a long explored solution....looking about your life and sensing all the moving parts are at last moving in sync.

Finally there is the notion of joy. Is it simply another way of describing these other feelings? Most poets will define it as more transcendent than those. It usually has to do with being rapturously in touch with what is most transcendent in your life. Perhaps another way of saying: The one you love and admire and need the most. This could be a parent....a lover...a leader...or, more likely, a God.

Of course when all is said and done, human pleasure can't really be defined and distinguished this way. It's not a definition, it's not a gene, it's not a brain circuit, it's not anything that evolutionists have tried to pin down. Again, it's more what poets seek to express. How about this one...?

Human pleasure is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.