Hard to Please

No doubt you have often received invitations which say at the bottom “R.S.V.P.” – and you probably know that this means that you are being asked to respond. I’m not a great linguist, but I know enough French to be able to tell you that these letters stand for “Répondez S’il Vous Plaît.” The first word simply means “Reply,” but the other three words are more complex. Taking them literally, they say “if it to you is pleasing.” This is the formal French way of saying what in English became “if you please,” which we then boiled down to just the word “please.”

Some innocently ignorant people, when preparing invitations, put: “Please R.S.V.P.” which of course is an unnecessary repetition.

But it was from “please” that we got “pleasure,” and “pleasant,” and similar words, all very cheerful and upbeat. In view of the popularity of the sentiment, it’s not surprising that there are so many different ways in which people are pleased. If we were to make a list, it could be so long and detailed that one might wonder how there was any room left for that other list, of all the possible causes of displeasure and unhappiness.

One might safely hypothesize that the most universal pleasures are those connected with bodily functions, such as eating, sleeping, eliminating, and, of course, having various kinds of sex. There are others, which seldom get the glory they deserve. I don’t know about you, but to me, sneezing can be one of the great pleasures of life. So can yawning. But nothing beats the satisfaction you can get from scratching an itch. Then there are the “athletic” pleasures, which unfortunately we often grow out of, such as running, jumping, and throwing.

But, apart from those basics, getting pleasure, or enjoyment, or fun, is very much an individual matter. In almost every category, such as art, music, literature, or entertainment, what appeals to one person is bound to sicken, repel, offend, or simply not interest, someone else. As an originator and circulator of condensed Thoughts, I have found wide variations in the popularity of specific messages. Before the task became too overwhelming, I once made a careful study of the relative public appeal of the first 1,000 of what eventually became an oeuvre of 10,000 published Thoughts. This survey was based on mail orders received from people who had seen only the words, and not any
accompanying illustration.

So, of those 1,000, what was the most popular message? Far in the lead, with hundreds of “votes,” was #980, which simply says: “Your smile is one of the great sights of the world.” And what came in as the least preferred, the only Thought not chosen by a single person? It turned out to be #693, which says, “One possible reason why I don’t believe in fate is that I wasn’t fated to.” I can understand the “smile” message being a best-seller – but why did #693 not garner more support? I can only speculate that it just wasn’t fated to.

My own pleasures include singing, especially while hiking – which, alas, entails one of my biggest regrets, because none of the women I’ve been involved with has ever shared that enthusiasm.

And what about “intellectual pleasures,” such as puzzles, quizzes, and certain board games? I’ve never liked most puzzles, and for most of my life, that included crosswords. Then, bored on some long flight, I tried the puzzle in the airline magazine, and, to my surprise, found myself enjoying it. Before long, I was hooked. The same thing, apparently, happened to the public at large, after crossword puzzles began appearing in newspapers in 1913. Isn’t it amazing that, after more than a century, this form of amusement retains its popularity! Don’t they ever run out of ideas for different words, patterns, and clues?

But it isn’t enough for some people that pleasure exists. They must try to analyze it – thereby, of course, taking all the fun out of it. Those people, in particular, are scientists, who have discovered that our bodies produce something called endorphins, which actually reduce pain and heighten sensations of pleasure. Unfortunately, the problem of how to produce endorphins artificially, in some form that doesn’t threaten to cause addiction (as with related substances called opioids), hasn’t yet been solved.

In the meantime, let me leave you with this caution from an unimpeachable source (myself):

“If you postpone a pleasure long enough,
It may melt, spoil, die,
Evaporate,
Or move away.”