Well, it strikes me as a selfish form of hedonism, and also nihilistic. She's given up on the rest of the world... some might call that realistic...but if she's only indulging her own pleasure, then that lacks compassion, the spark of empathy that would drive her to take care for (at the very least) others' pleasure, and better yet, others' suffering. There is a certain animal purity to it, but she has given up so much of what makes us human: the ability to care about what has come before us and what will come after us, the attempt (even futile) to make a difference for the future, the simple fact that we can choose how to behave. So from my point of view, that's limited, and selfish, and therefore I would tend to make a value judgment that her choices are unfortunate. Does that make her a lesser person? Well, I guess that depends a bit on what she does next. If that's all she ever does, I would tend to think she had squandered the potential to be more. Not a lesser potential person, but a lesser realized person.
Since I think one of the things we're put here to do is to reduce suffering, then struggling to comprehend someone else is not a waste or an indulgence, because comprehending the Other is a first step towards compassion for the Other.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-02-28 01:56 am (UTC)Since I think one of the things we're put here to do is to reduce suffering, then struggling to comprehend someone else is not a waste or an indulgence, because comprehending the Other is a first step towards compassion for the Other.