Men, Fools, and Hedonistic Fools

Trying so hard to be vain.. it’s ridiculous.

I admire Charlotte Brontë’s ability to express the loneliness, hardships (especially for women at her time), episodes of love failures, and the utmost sense of darkness—which she must have endured throughout her lifetime as a woman in the Victorian period, who resided with her Dad for most of her life, spending a lot of time in a house having nothing to do but be alone with her thoughts—all inclusively and in an excellent manner in her books, particularly the two most autobiographical novels, Jane Eyre and Villette. Both are dark and heavy to read through. I believe it to be important for one to not “scan” through her books and helplessly create a vivid image throughout the Brontë experience.

For people who live an almost hedonistic lifestyle, Brontë's books seem to act as a recap—bringing one back to the dark side of emotions: the sadder, more honest, realer, more naked self.
Though it may not be necessarily the healthiest or a moral thing to do so, I am glad to be born in an age of extended liberty and feminine rights, when, as a girl in her early twenties, is fully acceptable to choose her own lifestyle, even one that would be considered slightly hedonistic. When I say “acceptable,” meaning whatever choice I please is not to be attacked or criticized upon by any (personal) opinions.

Being hedonistic is a form of game, like a chase. One with a clear sense of conscientiousness who chooses to do so, suffers episodes of internal struggle that I am perhaps not skillful enough to put in words, however I will attempt. It is almost as if one has his own character under control—how he portrays himself, what he chooses, and how he deals with the consequences of such lifestyle. There is fun, there is artificiality, which are also integrated with emotions and feelings made complicated, due to the presence of conscientiousness. It is an experiment of earthly and hopeless pleasure-consuming while pertaining a bright mind with understood morals; it is a test that follows with battles between the devil and the angel on the shoulders. A hedonistic lifestyle is like a chase in the physical sense of addictive pleasure-seeking, in the psychological sense of continuously battling between thoughts and actions. Those without a sense of explicit conscientiousness who pursue a hedonistic lifestyle are fools, because they will only lose for there is no game. They fully believe in such lifestyle’s privileges and the physical satisfaction of being a hedonistic individual, and thus will never have to fight with any moral thoughts and merely go downhill.

All men are fools at times—fooled by emotions, confused with feelings, and wasted with self-brought agony. However, hedonistic fools are men without having to go through these struggles and are hence the epitome of “fool:” without grounds, without senses—completely silly and wasteful as a human being.