A Shameless Sense-Gratifier

[Dimmesdale]

It is a handy heuristic to have, that one may assess all their misdirected desires, addictions, and compulsions under the heading of "sense-gratification."

People generally don't like to do that however. It is not as easy, because people regard it as more complicated. If you are addicted to drugs, it is the particular "highs" you crave, the complex "effects" they have, with cascading implications, which are taken into account. Or if it is food or sex, in the first case one has to bring in just what sort of recipes are had, or in the latter, what taste in gender there is, as well as consideration with regard to concrete persons, relationships, and so on.

In other words, it is never "just" sense-gratification. The mind is deferred to other matters. The mind makes these things to be more complicated, even when it isn't. The mind smuggles in some content which, at many times we should be ready to admit, isn't there.

The fact is we have a more mercenary disposition than we give ourselves credit for. We don't want our illusions to die. Both because we think we are enjoying more than we really are (and, for that very reason we do, in the moment). And also, because we may feel we have some "credit" with our fellow enjoyers, who are really fellow sufferers like us....

It is anger that is fully aroused when we do not get our way. When we fail to approximate our own mis-perceived standard. And yet, at the end of the day, our desires, and our satisfactions, pass, and whether we met our own conditions or not, our senses remain unsatisfied, unsatiated. What do we do with them, with that?

I say: Don't dwell on them and, what is more, Replace gratification with REALITY-contact. That sober, hard and rigid assertion of ourselves which is the true mainstay of our being and which will Awaken us to our Self - which is what we desire above all finite relationships.

I am not saying it is easy. Sense-gratification is easy. Sense-gratification wedded to our delusions is more easy. But awakening to Reality is hard in the interim, but much more Satisfying because it Reaches the Eternal.