Simple Pleasure

Do you find this age of ours amusing? For my part, I find it rather sad on the whole. And I fear my impression is not mine alone. Watching my contemporaries live and listening to them talk, I find myself, unfortunately, confirmed in the feeling that they do not enjoy themselves very much. It is not for want of trying, though; but it must be admitted that they succeed only poorly. What can be the reason?

Some blame politics or business, others the social questions or militarism. Once we start telling the rosary of our great worries, we are spoiled for choice. Go and enjoy yourself after that! There is too much pepper in our soup for us to eat it with pleasure. Our arms are loaded with a host of troubles, any one of which would be enough by itself to spoil our temper. From morning to night, wherever you go, you meet people who are hurried, harassed, preoccupied. Some have bled away all their good spirits in the nasty conflicts of snarling politics; others are sickened by the base dealings and the jealousies they have met in the world of literature or the arts. Commercial competition also troubles many a night's sleep; overly demanding courses of study and overcrowded careers spoil life for young people; the working class bears the consequences of an industrial struggle without truce. It is becoming unpleasant to govern, because prestige is slipping away, and to teach, because respect is declining: wherever one looks, there are grounds for discontent.

And yet history shows us certain troubled ages that lacked idyllic tranquility as much as ours does, and which still knew gaiety in spite of the gravest events. It even seems that the gravity of the times, the uncertainty of tomorrow, the violence of social upheavals can on occasion become a fresh source of vitality. It is not rare to see soldiers singing between two battles, and I hardly think I am mistaken in saying that human joy has celebrated its finest triumphs in the hardest times, in the midst of obstacles. But in those days, to sleep peacefully before battle or to sing in the storm, people had reasons of an inner kind that we perhaps lack. Joy is not in things; it is in us. And I persist in believing that the causes of our present malaise, of this contagious bad humor that is overtaking us, lie within us at least as much as in outward circumstances.

To enjoy yourself wholeheartedly, you must feel you are on solid ground; you must believe in life and possess it within you. And that is what we lack. Many people, even, alas, among the young, are at odds with life today, and I am not speaking only of philosophers. How can people be expected to enjoy themselves when they harbor the lurking thought that it might perhaps have been better, after all, if nothing had ever existed? We observe, moreover, a disturbing depression in the vital forces of our time, which must be attributed to the abuse we have made of our sensations. Too many excesses of every kind have warped our senses and impaired our capacity to be happy. Nature is giving way under the eccentricities inflicted on it. Struck deep at its root, the will to live, persistent in spite of everything, seeks satisfaction by artificial means. In medicine, people resort to artificial respiration, artificial feeding, galvanization. In the same way, we see around dying pleasure a multitude of eager people trying to awaken it, to revive it. The most ingenious means have been invented: no one will say that expense was spared. Everything has been tried, the possible and the impossible. But in all these complicated stills no one has ever managed to distill a single drop of true joy. We must not confuse pleasure with the instruments of pleasure. Would it be enough to arm yourself with a brush to be a painter, or to buy a Stradivarius at great cost to be a musician? In the same way, even if you had the most perfected and ingenious outward apparatus for enjoying yourself, you would be no further along. But with a scrap of charcoal a great painter can draw an immortal sketch. It takes talent or genius to paint, and to enjoy yourself you must have the capacity to be happy. Whoever has it finds enjoyment at little cost. In a person, this capacity is destroyed by skepticism, artificial living and excess; it is sustained by trust, moderation, and normal habits of activity and thought.

An excellent proof of what I am saying, and one very easy to gather, lies in this fact: wherever a simple and healthy life is found, genuine pleasure accompanies it, as fragrance accompanies real flowers. However hard that life may be, however hampered, deprived of what we usually regard as the very conditions of pleasure, we see that rare and delicate plant, joy, flourish there. It pushes up between two close-set paving stones, in the crevice of a wall, in a cleft of rock. We wonder how and from where it comes. But it lives, while in hothouses and richly manured soil you cultivate it at the price of gold, only to see it wither and die between your fingers.

Ask actors which audience enjoys a comedy most, and they will tell you it is the common people. The reason is not very hard to grasp. For that audience, comedy is an exception; they have not become surfeited with it by having too much. Then, too, it is a rest from their hard labor. The pleasure they savor they have earned honestly, and they know its value as they know the value of the few sous earned by the sweat of their brow. Besides, they have never been behind the scenes, they have not mixed in the intrigues of actors, they do not know the tricks of the trade; they believe it is all really happening. For all these reasons they enjoy an unmixed pleasure. I can see from here the jaded skeptic in that box, his monocle glinting, casting a disdainful glance over the delighted crowd:

Poor wretches, idiots, an ignorant, boorish rabble!

And yet they are the ones who are truly alive, while he is an artificial creature, a mannequin, incapable of feeling that fine and wholesome intoxication of an hour of wholehearted pleasure.

Unfortunately, artlessness is disappearing, even among the common people. We see the people of the towns, and those of the countryside after them, breaking with good traditions. Their minds, perverted by alcohol, the passion for gambling and unwholesome reading, gradually acquire morbid tastes. Artificial life bursts into circles that were once simple, and at once it is as when phylloxera gets into the vine. The sturdy tree of rustic joy feels its sap drying up and its leaves turning yellow. Compare a country festival in the good old style with one of those village fêtes that are supposedly modernized. On one side, within the respected frame of age-old customs, sturdy country folk sing the songs of their region, dance its dances in peasant dress, drink natural beverages and seem completely in their element. They enjoy themselves as the blacksmith forges, as the waterfall tumbles, as colts frisk in the meadow. It is contagious; it wins your heart. In spite of yourself you say: "Bravo, my friends, that's the spirit!" You would ask to join in. On the other side, I see villagers dressed up as townspeople, peasant women made ugly by the milliner, and, as the chief ornament of the festival, a pack of degenerates bawling café-concert ditties; and sometimes, in the place of honor, a few tenth-rate hams brought in for the occasion to knock the rough edges off these rustics and give them a taste of refined pleasures. For drinks, liqueurs made from potato spirits, or absinthe. In all this, neither originality nor picturesqueness. Looseness, perhaps, and vulgarity, but not that free abandon which artless pleasure brings.

This question of pleasure is of capital importance. Steady, sensible people generally neglect it as a frivolity; utilitarians, as a costly superfluity. Those who go by the name of men of pleasure root about in so delicate a domain like wild boars in a garden. No one seems to have the slightest idea of the immense human interest attached to joy. It is a sacred flame that must be fed, and it casts a brilliant light on life. Whoever takes care to keep it burning does work as profitable to humanity as the one who builds bridges, cuts tunnels or tills the soil. To live in such a way that, amid life's work and troubles, we preserve the capacity to be happy and pass it on to others, as though by a wholesome contagion, is to practice solidarity in its noblest sense. To give a little pleasure, smooth worried brows, bring a little light to dark roads - what a truly divine service to poor humanity! Yet we can fulfill it only with great simplicity of heart.

We are not simple enough to be happy and to make others happy. We lack goodness and detachment from ourselves. We spread joy as we spread consolation, by such methods that we get negative results. What do we do to console someone? We set about denying their suffering, disputing it, persuading them that they are mistaken in believing themselves unhappy. At bottom, our language, translated into words of truth, comes down to this: "You are suffering, my friend. How strange; you must be mistaken, for I feel nothing." Since the only human way to relieve suffering is to share it with the heart, what must an unhappy person feel when consoled in this fashion?

To entertain our neighbor and give him a pleasant moment, we go about it in the same way: we invite him to admire our wit, to laugh at our sallies, to frequent our house, to sit at our table, and everywhere our concern for display breaks through. Sometimes, too, with patronizing generosity, we give him the alms of some diversion of our own choosing. Or else we invite him to enjoy himself with us as we might invite him to a game of cards, with the hidden intention of exploiting him for our own profit. Do you think that the greatest pleasure for others is to admire us, to acknowledge our superiority or to serve as our instrument? Is there any boredom in the world to compare with that of feeling exploited, patronized, enrolled in a claque? To give pleasure to others and to take it ourselves, we must begin by setting aside the self, which is hateful, and keeping it chained for as long as the entertainment lasts. There is no worse spoilsport than that one. Let us be good-natured, amiable and kindly; let us put away our medals, our insignia and our titles, and place ourselves wholeheartedly at the service of others!

Let us sometimes live, if only for an hour and setting everything else aside, to make others smile. The sacrifice is only apparent: no one has a better time than those who know how to give themselves simply to bring the people around them a little happiness and forgetfulness.

When shall we be simply human enough not to give the place of honor at our gatherings for pleasure to all the things that grate on our nerves in everyday life? Can we not forget for an hour our pretensions, our divisions, our classifications, in short, the parts we play, so as to become children again and laugh once more that good laugh which does so much good and makes people better?

I feel urged here to make a particular observation and offer my well-intentioned readers opportunities to undertake a beautiful work. I want to draw their attention to several kinds of people whose pleasure is rather neglected.

We think a broom can only sweep, a watering can only water, a coffee mill only grind coffee. Likewise, we think a nurse exists only to care for the sick, a teacher to teach, a priest to preach, bury, and hear confessions, a sentry to stand guard. We conclude that people engaged in the most serious work are dedicated to their functions as an ox is to plowing. Entertainment is incompatible with such activity. Taking this view further, we feel entitled to think that the infirm, the sorrowful, the ruined, life's defeated, and everyone with a heavy burden belong on the shadowed side, like the northern slope of a mountain, and that this must necessarily be so. Hence the widespread conclusion that serious people do not need pleasure and that offering it would be improper. As for those in sorrow, interrupting the thread of their sad thoughts would be tactless. It seems accepted that certain people are condemned to remain forever austere, that we must approach them with an austere face and speak only of austere things. Likewise, when visiting the sick or unfortunate, we must leave our smile at the door, assume a gloomy expression and a mournful manner, and choose distressing topics. Thus we bring darkness to those in darkness and shadow to those in shadow. We increase the loneliness of the lonely and the monotony of dreary lives. We shut certain lives away as in a dungeon. Because grass grows around their deserted retreats, we lower our voices as we approach, as though approaching tombs. Who suspects the hellish cruelty accomplished in this way each day in the world? It must not be so.

When you see men or women devoted to demanding tasks or to the painful service of encountering human misery and tending wounds, remember that they are made as you are, that they have the same needs, and that there are hours when they require pleasure and forgetting. You will not draw them away from their calling by sometimes making them laugh, these people who see so many tears and troubles. On the contrary, you will restore strength for them to continue their labor better.

And when you know families visited by misfortune or individuals in sorrow, do not surround them like plague victims with a cordon you cross only with precautions that remind them of their unhappy fate. Instead, after showing all your sympathy and respect for their pain, relieve them, help them live, bring them a breath of the outside world, something to remind them that their misfortune does not exclude them from the world.

Extend your sympathy also to everyone whose occupation absorbs them and seems to fasten them to one place. The world is full of self-sacrificing people who never have rest or pleasure, for whom the smallest freedom, the most modest respite, is an immense blessing. It would be so easy to give them this little relief if only we thought of it. But there it is: the broom is made to sweep, and apparently it cannot feel tired. We must free ourselves of the culpable blindness that prevents us from seeing the weariness of those always in the front line. Let us relieve the lonely sentries of duty and give Sisyphus an hour to catch his breath. Let us take, for a moment, the place of the mother whom housework and children have made a prisoner; sacrifice a little of our sleep for those worn out by long nights beside the sick. Young woman who perhaps does not always enjoy walking, put on the cook's apron and set her free. In this way, you will make others happy and be happy yourselves. We constantly walk beside people carrying burdens we could take upon ourselves, if only for a little while. Yet that brief respite would be enough to heal troubles, rekindle extinguished joy in many hearts, and open a wide field for goodwill among people. How much better we would understand one another if we could wholeheartedly take each other's place, and how much more pleasure there would be in living!

I have already said so much elsewhere about organizing pleasure among the young that I will not return to it here in detail [1]. But I want to state in substance what can never be repeated enough: if you want young people to be moral, do not neglect their pleasures, and do not leave it to chance to provide them. You may answer that young people do not like having their amusements regulated, and that, besides, the youth of today are spoiled and enjoy themselves only too much. I will answer, first, that one can suggest ideas, point out directions and create opportunities for pleasure without regulating anything. Secondly, I will point out that you are mistaken in imagining that young people enjoy themselves too much. Apart from artificial, enervating and corrupting pleasures, which wither life instead of making it blossom and shine, very little is left to them today. Abuse, that enemy of legitimate use, has so smeared the earth that it is becoming hard to touch anything it has not soiled. Hence precautions, prohibitions and bans without number. One can hardly move if one wants to avoid everything that resembles unwholesome pleasure. Among young people today, especially those who respect themselves, the lack of pleasure causes deep suffering. No one is weaned from this generous wine without harm. This state of things cannot go on without deepening the shadow over the heads of our young generations. We must come to their aid. Our children are inheriting a world that is not cheerful. We are bequeathing them heavy cares, perplexing questions, a life burdened with hindrances and complications. Let us at least make an effort to brighten the morning of their days. Let us organize pleasure, create shelters for it, open our hearts and our homes. Let us enlist the family. Let cheerfulness cease to be an export commodity. Let us gather our sons, whom our gloomy homes drive into the street, and our daughters, who are bored in solitude. Let us multiply family celebrations, gatherings at home and family outings; let us raise good humor in our homes to the rank of an institution. Let the school join in too. Let teachers and pupils, schoolchildren or students, meet more often and enjoy themselves together. It helps serious work along. There is nothing like having laughed in a teacher's company for understanding him well; and conversely, to understand a student or a schoolboy well, you must have seen him somewhere other than on the school bench or in the hot seat of an examination.

[1] See, among others, Youth, chapter "Joy."

"And who will provide the money?" What a question! There lies the central error. Pleasure and money: people take them for the two wings of the same bird. Alas, the illusion is a crude one! Pleasure, like all truly precious things in this world, can be neither sold nor bought. To enjoy yourself, you must give of yourself; that is the essential. No one forbids you to open your purse if you can and if you find it useful. But I assure you, it is not indispensable. Pleasure and simplicity are two old acquaintances. Entertain simply, gather simply. First, do your work well; be as kind and as loyal as possible toward your companions, and do not speak ill of the absent: success is assured.

Translator's notes

The self, which is hateful: an echo of Pascal's maxim "Le moi est haïssable" ("The self is hateful"), from his Pensées.