A New Adventure

Enjoy - What the hell!

What do you want in life?
I want to be 'Happy'

How was the party yesterday?
Oh! I 'enjoy'ed it a lot.

How was Miami?
'twas 'fun'

Happiness, enjoyment, fun - They define our life and positive things associated with it. But they are among the most abstract of concepts and carry different meaning for everyone. I wonder what does enjoyment mean for different people. I was in arizona the last couple of days. One night I was at a bar listening to live music, and a wave crossed my mind. "Am I 'Enjoying' right now? If yes, what is it that is giving me enjoyment? Why is that I am feeling a sense of happiness - if I am?" Interesting question indeed.

I know that am incaypable of knowing what enjoyment means to you, but still feeling the desire to write about it. What I see the meaning of enjoyment from different point of view. These are not necessarly my notion of enjoyment, infact I still have to become fully aware of what it is that give me 'Enjoyment'.

1. Losing the 'conscious' sense of existence - Loosing yourself.
In todays world, the most common way in which people believe that they experience enjoyment are the activities that makes them loose the sense of existence. Atleast at a conscious level. I do not imply that they start to feel that they dont exist, but they forget they do. A perfect example would be movies, whereby using the principle of 'willing suspension of disbelief', we get engrossed in the timeline of the movie. At a conscious level we know what is on screen is false, but we still manage to produce emotional response to it, we forget about our presence in this world.

Another most common source of enjoyment is listening to music and/or reading. Here again the sense of 'forgetfullness' of the present existence makes us feel that we are enjoying that moment. For that matter, most of the true hobbies would fall in this category. It makes them forget their 'worries', 'concerns', 'responsibilities', 'needs', 'desires' and submerge in a single activity that occupies the mental space. It is like loosing yourself to one single activity.

Now this has had such an impact on our society, that things that make you forget your existence, or inactivates your senses about it are promoted/attributed as a source of enjoyment. Drugs is one extreme, but since it has harmful effects of the body, it is considered as 'negative' way to enjoy. Alcohol and other such product also create this effect of 'enjoyment', but this time loosing yourself not to any activity but to the lack of it.

The question is that is this 'really' enjoyment. Losing to an activity or alcohol. Is this all a human can do to be in a state of enjoyment. What about sustenance of enjoyment using the above trick? Is it possible to be in a contineous state of enjoyment by any of the above mentioned tecniques? Is there something more a man can strive to fulfill his desire for 'happy' and 'enjoyable' life?
...to be continued

posted by Nikhil @ 9:39 PM