Insights re: pleasure and hedonism
Insights into the nature of pleasure and happiness and why our attitude towards it is generally wrong.
Suffering and happiness are both are transient feelings that pass away. We bemoan the transience of happiness, but this same transience is also what makes suffering pass away.
In both cases, it is a matter of fixating on something which we cannot let go of. One involves the attainment of a desire, the other is a falling short of some kind. But because both involve dwelling and clinging, they both contain the essential ingredient of suffering. It’s just a matter of the order in which the suffering appears.
This is where we can talk of a symmetry: With a desirable thought, its passing away results in pain. With a negative rumination, its passing away results in relief. Neither last, and neither should attract too much of our attention.