The Self’s Inversion in the Face of Setbacks: Purpose versus Pleasure

Yesterday, I had an enlightening conversation with a friend about the nature of the self and how it inverts when there is no known purpose, or perhaps, when it faces significant setbacks, whether foreseen or unforeseen.

I’ll share my thoughts on the matter forthwith:

The self — the conscious self — is inherently designed to find purpose through meaningful activities, such as a job or a panoply of hobbies or a specific hobby, as it is. It is not designed to derive lasting purpose from hedonistic pleasures — on this, many hedonists will beg to differ. The highest optimal aim of the self is to find purpose in work or something approximating work. The reason this is so is because, during work, the self forgets present circumstantial challenges and directs all efforts into creating something meaningful. It is akin to creating order out of chaos, as, in truth, that is the true essence of work. This, in truth, demands every bit of time and effort one can muster.

However, in the situation where such purposeful work, or something approximating it, is removed, the self undergoes a reversion — or more accurately, an inversion — into two distinct forms. Let’s call these two forms Form A and Form B.

Form A:

In this form, the self gravitates towards a divine entity. It does this because it believes through this divine entity, the work which gives it purpose can be restored. Now, this inclination towards a divine entity is particularly common with those from a religious background, notably Christianity. This is not to say that those from non-religious backgrounds do not follow this form. In many cases, the enormity of their setbacks decides this. We see this happen with people who suffer significant challenges. For example, a laissez-faire Christian lady who has been experiencing a string of miscarriages finally turns to God after many exhausting and failed medical treatments, seeking divine intervention to stop the recurring miscarriages.

For the second category — those who revert to Form A with no religious background — an example is a man facing significant marital difficulties due to financial hardship. He resorts to God, the supposed giver of wealth, to grant him prosperity and save his marriage from failing. This person may not necessarily be a believer, but because he somewhat believes in the divine’s ability to restore, just like the woman with the issue of miscarriages, he cleaves to God for the solution.

Form B:

In this form, the self resorts to hedonistic purposes as a means to numb the profound sense of utter void resulting from the cessation of purposeful work or something approximating that. Take, for example, a man who has suffered a financial loss of unimaginable proportions and resorts to alcohol as a way to numb his enormous feeling of overwhelming emptiness. However, it is important to state that this fellow’s religious background is not a deciding factor in his decision to seek a hedonistic approach as a solution to his challenge; he may or may not have a religious background. Fundamentally, the reason he adopts this hedonistic approach is because hedonism provides instant gratification. When you encounter that sort of financial devastation that renders you somewhat penniless, what may matter most to you is the gratification of the self above all things, as against following a religious path or seeking God, which may very well be arduous and painstaking — a feeling he may not want to experience at that moment, given all he’s faced.

Upon the resolution of setbacks, the self’s reaction varies based on its inversion. For those in Form A, once the crisis has been resolved, it is common for the self to abandon its religious fervor and revert to its pre-crisis state. For example, consider a woman who turned to God due to her inability to find a job, only to revert to her former ambivalence towards God and His purposes once she’s secured employment. This overwhelmingly suggests that her resort to God and adherence to His commands were solely motivated by her need for a job, and now that this need has been fulfilled, God no longer serves a purpose.

For those in Form B, the outcome is usually complex. It is possible that they might revert to their former pre-crisis state. However, this is tricky because of the insidious nature of hedonism: The prolonged indulgence in hedonistic pleasures can transform the self into something unrecognizable to the degree that one morning, upon waking, you no longer recognize who’s standing in front of the mirror. This creates a set of more complex challenges, as the battle now shifts inward, becoming more mentally taxing than the crisis that initially drove people in this category to hedonism. Thus, with the original crisis resolved, a new, hydra-headed one emerges — more difficult to solve even with divine intervention. This new challenge involves confronting and overcoming the self, which has become a monstrous, hydra-headed entity due to untrammeled hedonistic indulgences, and returning it to the former state before the crisis.

If they manage to achieve this, despite its formidable difficulty, it presents a valuable learning opportunity — they will have firsthand experience of the dangers of allowing such deceptively pleasurable monsters to grow unchecked, better equipping them to handle future crises.