Pleasure is a word of such risqué connotations. In life you make decisions based on what ultimately gives you what you need, and this might be a long term desire or a short, five-minute one. Pleasure has driven me to make decisions that ultimately brought me fulfilment; for instance, the decision to leave a job. But there have also been times that I have made some pretty bad decisions. Any decision requires a simple, honest analysis of human reaction: if it feels good, you keep on doing it; if it doesn’t, then you try something else. Pleasure is derived from a primal instinct. The word embodies, among others, sexual, creative, intellectual, and even comical desires, all of which are completely unique to each and every single human being, yet no matter who you are or where you come from, we can all agree it is a positive sensation.
And while there is pleasure, there is also pain. Both are feelings of great intensity, and you can’t experience one without understanding the other. The only difference between the two is that one is positive and the other is negative. Ultimately, both are raw intrinsic feelings that we require to feel human, and individual. We eat chocolate, we have sex, and we shop. These are all minute pleasures that make our days slightly more manageable. But, what do we do our entire lives? We work. For some, it is often considered as pain, but if we’re doing the work we love, we’re pleasing ourselves to our highest fulfilment. The more we exercise our pleasure, the easier it is for us to communicate it. We can pinpoint the feeling and understand how to heighten it. Once we strike the right chord, it becomes easier to play the melody of our creative practice. The longer we play, the better we can articulate the song.
For me, my goal is to make things that resonate with people. It doesn’t bother me if people consider it beautiful, or strange, or unsightly. The goal, and the pleasure, is to instigate an emotional reaction. Getting others to understand my pleasure and for them to find their own pleasures in what I make is the ultimate reward.