One pleased, please.

As I was growing up, my mom, by virtue of her calling as a mother, was a cornucopia of handy advice. You know, things like, "Oh, it didn't hurt that bad," "It'll only hurt for a second," or "that didn't hurt, did it?" For some reason, my childhood is full of memories that hurt that probably shouldn't have. In retrospect, she was probably always right, again, if by nothing else than by virtue of motherhood. That and the fact that I was (am) somewhat of a pansy.

Anyways, my mom also gave me advice that didn't come when I was crying because I bumped my knee on the piano bench or when I saw a bug. She said, "If you please yourself, then that's one pleased." Although there may be several ways to interpret that statement, I will use it in the context that it was given to me. Essentially, in the case of tough decisions (such as what I should do on Friday nights, what I should have for dinner, whether I should go to zero hour BC Calculus, etc.), she would advise me to do what I wanted to do because I understand myself well enough to know what pleased me. I didn't have to worry about anyone else but myself because in trying to please others, there is no guaruntee. Since my mom is a math professor, she lives her life based on expected value. (She will even play the lottery when there is enough money in the pool to have a postive expected value.)

In theory, the probability of pleasing yourself entirely if you make decisions based only on your interests is 100%. This would make the expected value of pleasing yourself 1. If I can be 80% sure that I please, strictly for the sake of argument, my girlfirend Grendel (she may not be a lot to look at, but you should see her move furniture), then I have an expected value of .8. Now consider that when I act strictly to please myself, I still have a 20% chance of pleasing Grendel. That's an expected value of 1.2. Good deal, huh? The reason that I say this works only in theory is because there is a serious logical fallacy at work.

First of all, let's imagine a 12-year-old Tony. The probability of having what I thought would please me actually be what would please me was probably around 15%. I might have said to myself, "You know what's good for lunch? Snickers." When I was 16, I might have said, "Friday night? Halo here I come!" When I was 19, "Procrastinating research papers until the night before they are due is what all the cool kids do. And boy am I cool ..." Much to my surprise, none of those would please me in the end. Fortunately, I slowly learn from my mistakes. That percentage rises gradually, so today it may be something like 25%. But after this first fallacy of a grossly overestimated percentage of success, there is still a second concern to address.

I soon came to find that I could not be happy when other weren't. I think that this is not so much a sign of unbridled magnanimity, but more one of envoronmental paranoia, much like as if I were a skittish social chameleon. In other words, I have a 0% chance of being happy if my delicate Grendel is not absolutely ebullient. And perhaps the converse is also true; Grendel is happy only when I am. This becomes fallacious because the process to arrive at mutual happiness is circular. Optimistically this would be called a symbiotic relationship, but I deem it more appropriately labeled a dysfunctional one. As I look at the problematic nature of contentedness, I see why it is so intrinsically imbued with contention.

In the end, the only way out is slowly developing an understanding of what brings us pleasure coupled with pure, undiluted selfishness. At least I have one of the two, right?