I made some jokes at David Carradine’s expense, but his death has brought me back to one of my well worn musing subjects: the difference between pleasure and satisfaction, and the role each should play in my life.

In my internal debate, I fall squarely in the satisfaction camp. However, in my daily life, pleasure has its hooks in me, drawing me away from doing things that I know would bring me more lasting satisfaction.

I have grown wary of it, the distracting tug of pleasures. I am almost an anti-Epicurean. The physical pleasures place their tempting bread crumbs in a line before me. The path of pleasure always seems to be similar: First, I developed a taste for red wine. As time passed and I gained experience with different wines, I began to understand the differences between various grapes, production methods, and vintages. The prices for the bottles of the wines I enjoy the most start to go up. And up. But was I really enjoying the better wines more? Or, had I just lost the ability to have the same pleasures from the cheaper bottles I used to love?

Which brings me to David Carradine. For most of us, auto errotic asphyxiation is not going to be part of our sexual repertoire. To me today - the only person I can really speak for - personally proceeding that far down the road of fetishistic sex is unimaginable. In the same way, I suppose, for a good portion of his life, that kind of an act was unimaginable to David Carradine. But, I imagine, someone probably “turned him on” to some part of that experience, and then he went further, and further, and finally reached the end of his rope. So to speak.

I had a conversation before my son was born, about whether I would have him circumcised. I hadn’t really given the subject much thought - he was going to be circumcised. The argument that I was presented with was that doing so would decrease his sexual pleasure when he reached sexual maturity. I thought about that argument quite a bit. Among the many factors I considered was the extent to which my own personal life decisions had been influenced by sex, despite my apparent diminished enjoyment of the act because of my mutilated condition. It appeared to me that the argument was that I should choose that my son should be even more influenced by that particular pleasure because of its greater intensity?

He got circumcised.

In many areas of life, I do look for the best. One of the great things about having friends is that they are sifting through different streams of experience than you are, and you can each share the nuggets of excellence as they are discovered. I want to read the best books I can find. And reading is a pleasure. But it is not only a pleasure - there is also an aspect of learning, even from a work of fiction that seeks to entertain. That is different from pleasure that are, to use the cliched term, "empty". To me the purely sensual pleasures are empty. I can’t imagine looking back, twenty years from now, and saying to myself: “Yep, I really enjoyed the hell out of that Bordeaux. I can die knowing my life was meaningful because I experienced that taste.”

In contrast, I hope to draw some solace as my days slip away, from the people I have helped in my life, from reading Shakespeare, from the teaching I have done, and from the child I have helped raise.

I am fortunate to now have a job that I love that allows me to help people. Hell, today having any job is lucky. When I am working, bringing all of my talents and experiences to bear on matters of importance that affect peoples’ lives, there is a feeling of satisfaction that doesn’t go away in a day, a week or year. I can carry that feeling of satisfaction with me on my journey through the short time we are each afforded on this earth. But damn is it hard to turn off the Xbox and put in the effort needed to do the quality of work that provides that satisfaction.

There has to be a balance. There is room for fun, time for pleasures, and is it really so bad to prefer the graphics of a video game on an HD TV with a HDMI hookup? On the other hand, my intellect is pulled toward the teachings of Buddha, Martin Buber, and things I remember with satisfaction that I did twenty years ago - none of which were playing video games.