Conversations With Cinthia

Today Cinthia talked about the costs and value of pleasure and virtue.  In our culture, pursuing pleasure seems to make sense, to be part of living our best life.  And pleasure can be a good thing; sometimes it can help us enjoy good things, mitigate pain, etc.  But pleasure always has a price.  Sometimes pleasure is worth the price, but sometimes it is not.  Sometimes pleasure costs us more than we anticipated or acknowledged it would cost, both for us and for those around us.  Sometimes, in our attempts to mitigate pain with pleasure, we create more problems and pain.  Being willing to cause pain to others in order to secure pleasure for ourselves is called selfishness.  Being willing to cause harm to ourselves in order to experience pleasure is problematic, as well, particularly for those who believe human beings were created with value by something bigger than ourselves; harming ourselves also ultimately harms others, as well. Virtue also has a price.  Pleasure and virtue each cost us something.  Good cha