The pleasure of being oneself

(Selfishness as a virtue)

Nathaniel Branden was the "second in command" of Ayn Rand in the Objetivism of middle 20th Century. They were also friends and lovers for several years until they suddenly broke up in 1968.

Mr. Branden today

While still friends they published together a marvelous collection of articles under the name "The virtue of Selfishness" from where I extracted some interesting parts of the Branden's article "The Psychology of Pleasure" that I would like to comment here.

"Pleasure, for man, is not a luxury, but a profound psychological need. Pleasure (in the widest sense of the term) is a metaphysical concomitant of life, the reward and consequence of successful action—just as pain is the insignia of failure, destruction, death.
Through the state of enjoyment, man experiences the value of life, the sense that life is worth living, worth struggling to maintain. In order to live, man must act to achieve values. Pleasure or enjoyment is at once an emotional payment for successful action and an incentive to continue acting.
Further, because of the metaphysical meaning of pleasure to man, the state of enjoyment gives him a direct experience of his own efficacy, of his competence to deal with the facts of reality, to achieve his values, to live. Implicitly contained in the experience of pleasure is the feeling: “I am in control of my existence”—just as implicitly contained in the experience of pain is the feeling: “I am helpless.” As pleasure emotionally entails a sense of efficacy, so pain emotionally entails a sense of impotence.
Thus, in letting man experience, in his own person, the sense that life is a value and that he is a value, pleasure serves as the emotional fuel of man’s existence".

No doubt since those years Nathaniel Branden has become more and more one of the champions of self-esteem around the World and no doubt either he is right:
Self-esteem is a basic need for a solid and better man in any historical time, but since self-steem comes strongly from facing and overcoming challenges, it is more critical now when the opportunities for real challenges in modern western societies are quite diluted by the relative "safety" provided to individuals in almost every aspect of daily life.
In this matter there is still a question that probably only the far future will answer: Will be the man able to survive as species in despite of the weaknesses produced in the individuals (both bio-physically an psicho-mentally) due to their own evolution in societies that seem to provide every century more safety and less "real" challenges?
Where "real" means challenges where success would signify the possibility of continuity and descendancy and failure could signify the loss of life and extinction

To know more about the Branden's modern approach to self-steem I recommend his article "Our urgent need for self-steem" which you can download here (1)
Or visit this section of the Branden's site for more articles about this matter


Types of men according to Mr Branden:
(A humorous Hollywood-based little cartoon :-)

---

"One of the hallmarks of a man of self-esteem, who regards the universe as open to his effort, is the profound pleasure he experiences in the productive work of his mind; his enjoyment of life is fed by his unceasing concern to grow in knowledge and ability—to think, to achieve, to move forward, to meet new challenges and overcome them—to earn the pride of a constantly expanding efficacy."


Katsumoto in "The last samurai" seems to be a solid warrior and a man who takes risks for his ideas and lives the life as an adventure

---

"A different kind of soul is revealed by the man who, predominantly, takes pleasure in working only at the routine and familiar, who is inclined to enjoy working in a semi-daze, who sees happiness in freedom from challenge or struggle or effort: the soul of a man profoundly deficient inself-esteem, to whom the universe appears as unknowable and vaguely threatening, the man whose central motivating impulse is a longing for safety, not the safety that is won by efficacy, but the safety of a world in which efficacy is not demanded."


Sam Lowry in "Brazil" was a clerk that routinely go to work everyday in the same, small, gray office inside one of the huge control buildings of a totalitarian regime

---

"Still a different kind of soul is revealed by the man who finds it inconceivable that work—any form of work—can be enjoyable, who regards the effort of earning a living as a necessary evil, who dreams only of the pleasures that begin when the work day ends, the pleasure of drowning his brain in alcohol or television or billiards or women, the pleasure of not being conscious: the soul of a man with scarcely a shred of self-esteem, who never expected the universe to be comprehensible and takes his lethargic dread of it for granted, and whose only form of relief and only notion of enjoyment is the dim flicker of undemanding sensations."


Sergeant Garcia in "Zorro" only waits everyday to finish at work and drink a beer at the tavern to forget his sad and boring life

---

"Still another kind of soul is revealed by the man who takes pleasure, not in achievement, but in destruction, whose action is aimed, not at attaining efficacy, but at ruling those who have attained it: the soul of a man so abjectly lacking in self-value, and so overwhelmed by terror of existence, that his sole form of self-fulfillment is to unleash his resentment and hatred against those who do not share his state, those who are able to live—as if, by destroying the confident, the strong and the healthy, he could convert impotence into efficacy."


Oswald Cobblepot in "Batman Returns" is one of the more disgusting villains ever, who hates himself and everything in the World

---

Conclusions:

Self-steem is a value that is empowered by the virtue of pride.
It is possible to be the hero of your life, everyday can be an adventure, everyday can be enjoyed.
It is possible to live the life in a manner which you can be proud of yourself.
There is nothing more important than this if you want to be happy.

---

All quotations are from the article "The Psychology of Pleasure" by Nathaniel Branden published in the Ayn Rand's book "The Virtue of Selfishness" - I strongly recommend this book that you can buy at Amazom.com
Download here (1) the complete article in PDF format
(1) If any of these links offend any copyright please email me your complain and it will be cancelled