We’ve Been Living Life Inside a Bubble

When our will to receive is satisfied, we experience it as pleasure. When we cannot satisfy our desires we feel empty, frustrated, and even begin to suffer. Because of that, our happiness depends on the presence or absence of fulfillment of our desires. Any act we may perform, from the simplest to the most complex, is done to achieve but one thing – intensification of pleasure or diminution of pain. In fact, these are two sides of the same coin. In his essay, “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam states, “It is well known to researchers of nature that one cannot perform even the slightest movement without motivation, meaning without somehow benefiting oneself. When, for example, one moves one’s hand from the chair to the table it is because one thinks that by putting one’s hand on the table one will thus receive greater pleasure. If one would not think so, one would leave one’s hand on the chair for the rest of one’s life without moving it an inch, and all the more so with great efforts.”