Pleasure Theory

Humans have a finite capacity for pleasure, but an infinite ability to adjust the the way things are. If your life was really bland, all the time, and you always ate tasteless (though filling) food all your life, you would find a loaf of simple bread to be a better experience than if you always ate the finest foods, and had chocolate cake every day.

Have you ever been really hungry? And then did you ever eat something you normally found bland, and find it amazingly tasty? The experience of pleasure is relative. A gourmand's daily death by chocolate is the same experience as the ascetics daily rough bread.

Since man has a finite capacity for pleasure, discipline is most important. Our pleasure sensors have a limited range, so it is important to keep the baseline low, so that the increases can be felt. (Or... as Vanilla Sky put it... Love is about sweet and sour, and without the sour, the sweet is not as sweet...)

Perhaps it IS better to never love at all then to raise your expectations, and never be able to be happy again...

Perhaps love is like cocaine... it is only terrible because it ruins us for the everyday pleasures...