Is anything done for pleasure worth doing? Reason always trumps emotion

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Jump4Joy

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Doing something for a purpose usually trumps doing so for pleasure. Our senses can easily lead us astray. Is anytime in life we should consider emotion superior to reason? I want to write for fun. Is that worthless because I’m not writing something profound, intellectual or healing? Does all writing have to have a message or deeper meaning to be good?
 
I’m not sure of what you mean by fun. In general, most writing is an expression of your creative self, and good.
 
If you wanna write for fun, I don’t wanna read whatcha write !
So there
 
End_Timer said:
If you wanna write for fun, I don’t wanna read whatcha write !
So there
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Um. I’m not gonna touch that. Not sure at all what you were getting at there.

Anyway, I’m gonna go phrase by phrase here, because there were a few things I couldn’t quite connect, but I wanna get it all out.
Jump4Joy said:
Doing something for a purpose usually trumps doing so for pleasure.
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Agreed! But we do also need pleasure. We need to be disciplined about rest, and enjoyable activities or things can and often should be part of that, so long as the enjoyable activity/thing is not sinful. If you must be technical, you can rationalize and say that we only rest or do enjoyable things for the purpose of recharging that we may get back to purposeful things…well, sure, that’s fair. But rest and enjoyment can and should be part of that.
Jump4Joy said:
Our senses can easily lead us astray. Is anytime in life we should consider emotion superior to reason?
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Never. Nor should the opposite be considered true. Neither reason nor emotion is superior to the other. Reason without emotion is heartlessness, emotion without reason is ignorance, willful or otherwise, and/or naïveté. We need both! [Side note: both reason and emotion, when uncoupled from each other, can turn quite literally murderous. If you want clarification, quote this part in a response and I can explain further for you.]
Jump4Joy said:
I want to write for fun. Is that worthless because I’m not writing something profound, intellectual or healing? Does all writing have to have a message or deeper meaning to be good?
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Not necessarily. The best, but not all of art, to paraphrase the excellent Matt Walsh, leads the beholder to God. To beauty, to morals, to excellence, to meditation on His innate and infinite value.
And even when it isn’t, it is still good if it shows you to be set apart from the “art” around you. Certain rabbinical laws from the OT do not have a moral implication or externality, but they were established to set Israel apart from the heathens around them, to be an example to the nations. I don’t know what genres of writing you enjoy, but consider this: you don’t have to be writing a treatise or homily every time you put a pen to paper. You can write romance, spy novels, thrillers, detective stories, war stories, historical fiction, or short stories about school. What will really make the work good is whether it sets you apart from the sinful, godless culture around you because the work does not cater to or participate in it. That prompts those who consume your works to look closer at what makes you and your work different, and this, hopefully, is what can lead them to God or give you the opportunity to do so. This joy for writing may be a gift, an avenue for evangelizing!

Sorry it’s so long. I like writing too 😉
 
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@Jump4Joy:

We are so designed that we need some pleasure in our lives.
That’s not a bad thing; even in Scripture we read that at God’s right hand are pleasures forever waiting for us.
Emotion should not trump reason. Pleasure should not be allowed to take us from our duties.

But .

Emotion is not evil; it’s part of our nature. We can experience emotion without letting it squelch reason.
Pleasure is not evil. We can enjoy pleasure without letting it take us from our duty.

If you wish to write for fun, then go ahead and write for fun. You might well write something that gives other people pleasure, or that teaches them a lesson worth learning.
Even if not, it’s a good thing that you can enjoy your own writing.
God bless you, and write to your heart’s content.
 
blackforest said:
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Jump4Joy:
Doing something for a purpose usually trumps doing so for pleasure.
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Could pleasure ever have a purpose?
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And are purpose and pleasure always mutually exclusive?

Can I not exercise, for example, both to improve my health.and because it is enjoyable? And why on earth would it be morally superior to do away with that pleasure, say, by doing a form of exercise that I hate? In which case I’d probably do less of it and so not do as well with achieving the purpose either?
 
I thought you said you were going to leave this site ?

I read all these replies to a previous post of yours - to you leaving -
because the site wasn’t helping you - at all.

Have you talked with a Priest ?
 
LilyM said:
And why on earth would it be morally superior to do away with that pleasure, say, by doing a form of exercise that I hate?
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Our culture is influenced by the Puritans more than we like to admit. We forget how seeking joy in life is actually essential to our faith.
 
Some people think challenges and doing things you hate develop your character. Life isn’t easy or fair.
 
I have mustered the courage to speak to a priest. They intimidate me. I need better self control.
 
Writing is a muscle that we must not let atrophy. Yes your writing is absolutely worthwhile.
 
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Work and leisure, both are essential for your physical and spiritual health and growth. Balancing these are the key, and, at times, difficult.

I hate doing laundry. Forty years, and I don’t see it as having built any character.

Talk to the priest. They are human and experience all of the things we all do. You do not need to be intimidated.
 
Life isn’t easy or fair - and most of us get more than enough tough love and character-building opportunities of that sort naturally without having to masochistically pile more on deliberately.
 
They are celibate and demonstrate more self-control and self-discipline in their lives than the average person. How could they relate me to a person who have difficulty controlling internet urges?
 
I wish it were easier to be a recipient of tough love and harshness of life. Is it better to have those sort of folks in our life the ones who challenge us to change or who administer much-needed tough love?
 
Priests are just human beings like the rest of us, who put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. They often gain a bit of wisdom by dealing with a wide cross-section of folks though.
 
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