{"id":10223,"date":"2023-12-26T20:06:40","date_gmt":"2023-12-26T20:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/uncategorized\/on-pleasure\/"},"modified":"2023-12-26T20:06:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T20:06:40","slug":"on-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/other\/on-pleasure\/","title":{"rendered":"On Pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure." <\/div>\n

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And he answered, saying: <\/div>\n

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Pleasure is a freedom song, <\/div>\n

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But it is not freedom. <\/div>\n

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It is the blossoming of your desires, <\/div>\n

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But it is not their fruit. <\/div>\n

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It is a depth calling unto a height, <\/div>\n

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But it is not the deep nor the high. <\/div>\n

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It is the caged taking wing, <\/div>\n

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But it is not space encompassed. <\/div>\n

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Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song. <\/div>\n

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And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing. <\/div>\n

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Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. <\/div>\n

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I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. <\/div>\n

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For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone: <\/div>\n

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Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure. <\/div>\n

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Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure? <\/div>\n

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And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. <\/div>\n

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But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. <\/div>\n

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They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer. <\/div>\n

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Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted. <\/div>\n

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And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember; <\/div>\n

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And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it. <\/div>\n

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But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. <\/div>\n

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And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands. <\/div>\n

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But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit? <\/div>\n

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Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? <\/div>\n

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And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? <\/div>\n

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Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? <\/div>\n

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Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. <\/div>\n

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Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow? <\/div>\n

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Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived. <\/div>\n

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And your body is the harp of your soul, <\/div>\n

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And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. <\/div>\n

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And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?" <\/div>\n

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Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, <\/div>\n

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But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. <\/div>\n

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For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, <\/div>\n

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And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, <\/div>\n

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And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. <\/div>\n

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People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees. <\/div>\n

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Posted by: wyldwynd<\/p>\n

Notes: The Prophet, by <\/em>Kahlil Gibran, chapter 24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure." And he answered, saying: Pleasure is a freedom song, But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}