Trap. Horrible trap. At one’s birth it is sprung. Some last day must arrive. When you will need to get out of this body. Bad enough. Then we bring a baby here. The terms of the trap are compounded. That baby also must depart. All pleasures should be tainted by that knowledge. But hopeful dear us, we forget. Lord, what is this?
Depression - that limp word for the storm of black panic and half-demented malfunction - had over the years worked itself out in Charlotte's life in a curious pattern. Its onset was often imperceptible: like an assiduous housekeeper locking up a rambling mansion, it noiselessly went about and turned off, one by one, the mind's thousand small accesses to pleasure.
His thumb touched her lower lip, his eyes fixed on her. As if he couldn’t be stopped, the words flowed out of his mouth. “I want to take you in my arms, to kiss you long and hard, to touch you like you’ve never been touched, to give you the pleasure I feel running in your veins.
Each person has to face this challenge – you must search inside yourself. The props – surroundings, interactions, rituals, customs and superstitions – are just palliatives. You have to achieve your balance on your own; it has to come from the self. Once you get there, you can afford the luxury of lavishing your life with the pleasures of your drifting journey.
How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene.'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.''And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.
A feeling of pleasure or solace can be so hard to find when you are in the depths of your grief. Sometimes it's the little things that help get you through the day. You may think your comforts sound ridiculous to others, but there is nothing ridiculous about finding one little thing to help you feel good in the midst of pain and sorrow!
In living this way, we discover new opportunities for comfort and enjoyment. Where the younger person may have tossed and turned throughout a sleepless night, the older man or woman can possibly feel the pleasure that comes from lying on a good mattress, resting one's weary bones and overcharged intellect, whether or not one sleeps throughout the hours of darkness.
Meditation is a journey to know yourself. Knowing yourself has many layers. Start knowing your bodily discomforts. Know your success, know your failures. Know your fears. Know your irritations. Know your pleasures, joy and happiness. Know your mental wounds. Go deeper and examine every feeling you have.
My best advice is to first write for yourself and stay in your story and just pour all of your good stuff and bad stuff into it. By 'stuff,' I mean all the experiences and pleasures and little hurts that make up a life. Because even (and especially) the really hard experiences are worth having, if you can channel those emotions into something beautiful.
We were afraid of so many things: Of our children, who lived in their own world of casually lurid pleasures, zombies and cartoon killers and thuggish music. Of our neighbors, who were buying gold and ammunition and great quantities of freeze-dried food, and who were organizing themselves into angry tribes recognizable to one another by bumper stickers.