I've always considered myself a kind of hedonist and felt like Dionysus kinda knew what was up. And in the past that mostly meant I was partying a lot but now I'm getting into other kinds of hedonistic pleasure. Like yeah sure you can find god at the club but you can also find it inside a really juicy nectarine.
And at a certain point, the pursuit of partying stops being a pursuit of pleasure, because 1) you're in pain so much of the rest of the time in exchange for those few hours of pleasure, and 2) it gets really easy to ignore other kinds of pleasure and just keep hitting the party button over and over. That's not pursuing maximum pleasure, that's blindly pursuing one type of very limited pleasure in spite of how small the returns are getting.
Like I never thought of moderation as a form of pleasure-seeking but it actually really is. If the goal is to experience pleasure and avoid pain, then maintaining some degree of moderation is kind of important.
One thing I’ve learned from Dionysus is that pursuing joy is not the same thing as avoiding pain. If you’re gonna be a hedonist, let it be the genuine pursuit of joy, and not just avoidance.


















