Harpur College 1965 Yearbook (Binghamton, NY) - Full Access

Pleasure is that which causes temporary stability and suspension of the senses and causes the mind to focus on one thing. This is a debatable definition, and may, in fact, not be a definition at all. However, he who only will learn of pleasure through dry definition is beyond any human repair. Pleasure involves living and being conscious of that fact. It may involve doing something well, in sport or scholarly pursuit, or it may involve abandoning 1he self and merging it with something else - losing yourself in a crowd which is for the most part focusing its individual consciousness (es) on .the winning of a game, or the acting of a plpy. Pleasure is making sweet love far from the maddening crowd - lying still in a meadow aware only of silence and the eyes of the other. This is a pleasure not m~ntioned in college cata– logues or even in most yearbooks, but it will be mentioned here, because it lurks in the backs of all our minds, in that part of the consciousness no reserve article can touch, no tutor can penetrate. Ple~sure is walking by yourself when the weather is warm or in a crowd when it is cold. We p~rceive that cheerleaders are doing something pleasurable when they cheer; friends are doing something pleasurable when they lose an hour in the snack bar talking about any– thing of importance or unimportance. It is pleasurable to hear a good lecture; it is also pleasurable to look out the window during a bad one, especially if the snow is "carefully everywhere descending." A good panty raid is a pleasure of some magnitude, but there rarely is a good one. Pleasur_e is not measurable and covers the entire spectrum of GOIIege experience: writing a good paper and knowing it, eating a good sandwich, watching a good-looking girl who is not aware that your glazed eyes are upon her, being aware that a good-looking girl is watching you, discovering that the textbook you despise is factually wrong and writing incisive marginal comments. It is pleasurable to walk midst the trees after a snowfall, to see that your mail box is full, to get high and, as a conse- quence, hear yourself say profound, wonderful, witty, and tragicomic things you never thought yourself capable of. Any number of bars give pleasure, of sorts. For the desper- ate, eating fifteen cent hamburgers might g1ve pleasure, but not half so much as playing football on the Ieasure marr on a lazy after- noon. There is great pleasure to be had on a lazy after- noon if one is aware that it is precisely that type of afternoon. Merely to sit and talK, to lie on the grass and hear people around you talk, to direct your sensory apparatus to the perception of the everythingness of a large blue sky, is pleasurable. For some, making a social club is pleasurable, not merely for itself but for the promise of future pleasures. The same holds true for the acquisition of a car. One can have pleasure at a patio dance by suppressing all possible inhibitions, but declaring one's major is never pleasurable - there is too much commitment for there to be real pleasure. True pleasure must be unbridled and if deep commitment is involved, then great disillusionment and harm is possible. If one is uncommitted to whatever pleasure is at hand, then one can't possibly be hurt 'by it, although the pleasure is not as great. That is why Humphrey Bogart could not be easily hurt by a babe, because he was disengaged. Pleasure is that which causes temporary stability and suspension of the senses and causes . .