The Hedonist

The Hedonist: what combines into this role

A sense that responds immediately to the stimulation of the present moment, an attitude that does not ask what one lives for tomorrow, and a lack of the self-restraint to put off desires. This pattern appears when the three traits overlap. A person with this pattern keeps using a rare sense for deeply enjoying the present without direction or restraint, and ends up moving again and again from pleasure to boredom and from boredom to stronger pleasure.

The Hedonist: where it shows up

A person with this pattern spends their days centered on food, drinking, games, and new stimulation. When people meet this person, they see them as fun and as someone who lightens the mood, and this person is good at things that are rewarded right away but cannot start things whose reward comes much later.

The results of living that way show first in the body. When they are young, their resilience keeps it from showing, but as time goes on, the results of what they put off become clear in their health, finances, and relationships.

Living in the present and escaping into it are not the same

Psychology studies a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation. The more the same stimulation is repeated, the less satisfying it becomes, so one comes to seek stronger stimulation. A person who lives fully in the present finds their satisfaction grows, while a person who escapes into the present finds only the intensity of stimulation grows. If over the past year the stimulation has grown stronger while satisfaction has shrunk, it is a sign that a cycle of seeking stronger stimulation has begun.

The Hedonist: same role, different depth

Two people can share a role and still live differently, depending on how strongly it shows up in each of them.

When this pattern is faint, the sense for richly enjoying daily life stays a gift, but the stronger it grows, the more heavily they depend on stimulation and the less they ask about the meaning of life. How to deal with it differs with how strongly it shows, and that strength is written in your measurement results.