Go On, Enjoy Yourself! ; the Gloom-Mongers Say We're in for a Horrible Year. But the Author of a New Book On the Science of Pleasure Says There's Still Plenty of Happiness Around -- If Only You Know How to Look for It

Summary

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WHAT is your idea of perfect pleasure? We all harbour different ideas of what constitutes ultimate bliss -- or heaven, as some call it. Poet John Keats claimed that for him, it meant books, fruit, French wine, fine weather and a little music out of doors.

For the novelist Auberon Waugh it was playing bridge on a summer's afternoon with agreeable companions while drinking creme de menthe frappe through a straw.

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Go On, Enjoy Yourself! ; the Gloom-Mongers Say We're in for a Horrible Year. But the Author of a New Book On the Science of Pleasure Says There's Still Plenty of Happiness Around -- If Only You Know How to Look for It

Beyond universal pleasures, such as a good meal or shared laughter, pleasure can be found in the most idiosyncratic ways.

Dostoevsky experienced raptures of delight before one of his recurrent epileptic attacks, describing it as, 'a feeling of happiness such as it is quite impossible to imagine in a normal state and which others have no idea of'.

When asked to nominate his most joyful experience, the legendary Soho drinker Jeffrey Bernard recalled catching a ball in a cricket match after running in 20 yards from deep mid-off to extra cover.

Pleasure is a slippery beast. We know it when we feel it. Wanting more seems obvious.

But what actually is it? And as we enter a New Year, how can we attempt to fill our li...

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