Many of you may be mildly surprised to find this in your inbox on Friday, instead of Tuesday, although I hope you receive it at the usual time: 11:11 ET. (Apart from 11:11 signifying good luck, I love the way the 1’s all line up!)
On Saturday and Sunday, this newsletter may reach some new readers, and I thought I’d create this “landing page” as a special welcome to them.
The full title of this Substack is “The Pleasure Principle: Savoring Life After Fifty.” I believe the later years are a time to consciously add pleasure to our lives. After all, if not now—when? I’m a great believer in age-positivity, and when you have more time, as many older people do, it’s possible to incorporate more pleasure into everyday life.
Of course, it would be wonderful to add happiness and meaning to our lives, but those are more elusive, and one gets to them indirectly. There are thousands of self-help books that tell you how to achieve happiness and fulfillment, which only shows that these are not easy goals.
On the other hand, identifying one’s pleasures and building them into one’s routine is a relatively easy endeavor. One of my California friends takes his coffee outside on the deck every weekday before work. Before bed, he often soaks in the hot tub.
You don’t have to be live in California to build pleasure into your life. Perhaps it wasn’t a priority earlier, but it could become one now.
In my second Pleasure Principle post (this is my 104th, so readers have probably forgotten it!), I wrote:
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Happiness and pleasure, though related, are not identical. Pleasure, I would say, usually comes from the senses, while happiness is grander and more elusive. Pleasure can be over in seconds: you smell the intoxicating lilac blossom and move on. Happiness lasts longer and takes longer to build. Happiness is often connected to the realization of long-term goals: a fulfilling career, loving children, glowing health. Pleasure is a kiss on the neck, a bite of marzipan, a glass of wine.
It is common knowledge that older people care less about what others think than they did when they were young. It is curiously freeing not to worry much about what the neighbors or the in-laws might say. Perhaps the superego just diminishes in later life . . . . According to Freud, this leaves more power to the pleasure-seeking id!
So this is our time to savor the senses, to turn up the volume on that Bach concerto, to buy fresh dill for your salmon, to wear perfume even if you’re spending the day alone, to buy that supremely soft cashmere sweater (perhaps from the thrift shop). If not now, when?
Savoring the moment, enjoying simple pleasures in the here and now, may not be heroic or all you need to be happy. But small delights contribute to overall satisfaction and a sunny disposition.
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And surely a sunny disposition is a gift to others! In other words, it’s not wholly selfish to get that massage if it makes you more cheerful at home!
Part of the pleasure principle is acknowledging what gives you delight, no matter how quirky it may be. What someone else sees as a chore gives you a secret satisfaction. Some people like folding laundry (really!); some people like paying the bills (amazing!).
A cousin likes cold fingers on her body. Other people might shudder or squeal, but she adores it when her husband comes in from the cold and puts his hands under her shirt and on her back. (She laments that erections could never be cold.)
She wouldn’t enjoy the cold if she weren’t already warm herself. It’s the contrast that thrills her.
The problem with pleasure is we tend to get used to it, and then it doesn’t please us as much. This is called “hedonic adaptation,” or the “hedonic treadmill,” and it’s the bane of any pleasure-seeking sybarite.
So how can we thwart the hedonic treadmill? How can we keep our pleasures fresh and new? This is a recurring theme in this newsletter.
Future Pleasure Principle posts might be about:
The Human Face
The Camaraderie of Suffering
The Beauty of the Rocks
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Then there’s the pleasure of publication! April 20, National Weed Day, is the pub date for the 10th Anniversary Edition of Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir.
Kindle edition:
https://www.amazon.com/Just-Yes-Tenth-Anniversary-Catherine-Hiller-ebook/dp/B0F1ZBZ21M/ref=sr_1_3?crid=DYFXI5UIM1YF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Egp9Dmla1varc0dFetgoB0_Z96-lBkCe1CUpZYBNr5zGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.dRUq4Fx42lGf1NW5bPt_4Ra_ExlX7JptrC9KhiYVFDo&dib_tag=se&keywords=just+say+yes+a+marijuana+memoir&qid=1744941301&sprefix=just+say+yes+a+marijuana+memoir+%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-3
Book edition:
Amazon does not yet show the cover, but this link will get you to the 10th Anniversary Edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Just-Yes-Tenth-Anniversary-Catherine-Hiller/dp/195647465X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=9P3577CZ4PON&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.SM2NNDP3psRF0uixyFXkxgR8GWL8FkFnYCTe3-2TW00xh6TEr5dkIZEztNGJBW9F.GaNfeycAIPXhkmMgmvfMn4Pv6MEJ1ql1UFYpwrAtR_M&dib_tag=se&keywords=just+say+yes+by+catherine+hiller&qid=1744820538&sprefix=just+say+yes+by+catherine+hiller%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-1
Make sure you buy the one with the green cover! For now, Bookshop.org has only the old edition with the orange cover, but that should change soon.