Have you heard of the paradox of hedonism?? Well, based on a technical understanding of human psychology and my own personal life experience of consciously & strategically pursuing pleasure/happiness, I can authoritatively say that this longstanding claim of a paradox is just flat out wrong.
Put simply, the paradox of hedonism (aka pleasure paradox) says that one cannot gain pleasure/happiness if they are consciously pursuing it. Rather, one must be pursuing something else for other purposes and let pleasure/happiness potentially happen within that experience, without focusing on making it happen.
What a false crock of ass shit this claim is. This is like saying that there is some universal observer effect on positive emotion, where if you are looking for it, then it goes away. Bullshit. I’ve not only studied the depths of the human mind, I’ve deeply lived this stuff in my life.
Now, I can see how people could trip themselves up and come to this conclusion, especially centuries ago based on rudimentary understandings of psychology. The concept of the hedonic treadmill is much more real & reasonable, based on psychological extinction, which we’ve all experienced with many things in life. But, the paradox of hedonism goes way too far to be accurate. Consciousness of one’s pursuit of pleasure/happiness just simply introduces another mechanical variable within the mind that one’s experience is filtered through, which may or may not have a noticeable impact upon the emotional state derived.
In several cases, consciously trying to pursue pleasure/happiness through a chosen experience will negatively impact one’s gain of that. However, there are many times where it doesn’t and can actually help one be more effectively strategic in pursuing it via activities & experiences as well as engage more of our mental facilities for noticing & appreciating pleasurable aspects of an experience. Often when it reduces pleasure, the person is probably demanding more of the desired end result without sufficiently stimulating the cause of the desired result (more about this perspective). Of course this will create failed expectations and reduce pleasure/happiness.
The way to really effectively pursue pleasure/happiness in a ultra conscious & super strategic way is to…
- Study human psychology with a focus on human nature, so you understand the depths of the mind.
- Develop a very deep base of personal self-knowledge. Know thyself, yo!
- Philosophize about reality, humanity, & society so you can put the meaning of everything in a proper relative context.
- Strategically develop yourself, build your life, & pursue what you discover naturally makes you happy (deep human connection) with a conscious aim to optimize your ongoing experiences for peak pleasure.
You see, there is no paradox. There’s just mechanisms at play of varying degrees of influence relative to the unique scenario. If you beef up your capability to strategically produce pleasure/happiness, then you actually consistently can.
Having done this for a long-time, you can’t tell me that it doesn’t work well for creating & experiencing pleasure/happiness. It does. In fact, I’m going to go pleasure myself right now just to prove it to myself again. 
