Are You a Dissatisfed Human Being

or a Satisfed Pig?
This essay is dedicated to my beloved Sarah who has been an unfailing inspiration in the creation of it...

Worse, are you a dissatisfed human being seeking to be a satisfed pig? Is it

not amazing that the world is so satiated with dissatisfed hedonists most of
whom are bent on accumulating more and morebut can not? And, that
richer than themthere are so proportionately few persons satisfed as pigs
frolicking in their muddy pens of stocks, bonds, offshore accounts, greed, and
corruptionconvinced that their wealth makes of them some rarifed species
immune to the daily rigors of life that most others must deal with often with
daunting miserableness? Both are greedy. One is greedy to have what is not as
yet possessed, and the other is greedy to have more of what is already
possessed. Both are dogmatic and faithful in seeking what is snug and
complacent looking always for self-satisfaction by means of their namby-
pamby creeds created to establish and justify their fantasized pleasures. Both
have made a religion of being well and fxed on being warm as toast.

Some ethical theorists proclaim that pleasure or happiness ought to be the

main aim in life. The Cyrenaics, a group of Greek philosophers of the fourth
century BC, believed good feeling is the only pleasure, and it was considered
rewarding to have positively exclusively enjoyable physical sensations.
Physical pleasure is more intense than mental pleasure. Epicurus (341-270 BC)
followed in their footsteps advocating the pursuit of pleasure believing death
is the deprivation of sensationwhen our cravings fnally are diminished for
good. While the Cyrenaics were more sentient, the Epicureans were more
rationalistic in their thinking. The Epicureans believed death takes away the
intense desire for immortality, and pleasure is the beginning and end of the
blessed life. In his Epicurus to Menocceus, translated by C. Bailey, Epicurus
stated: To grow accustomed therefore to simple and not luxurious diet gives
us health to the full, and makes a man or woman alert for the needful
employment of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries,
disposes us better towards them, and fts us to be fearless of fortune. This
advice, if taken, would give us freedom from pain in the body and from
trouble in the mind. Epicureans are contrary to the idea that our lusts must be
satisfed; they advocate sober reasoning and motives for choosing and
avoiding luxuria, and mere opinions of the vox populi are fended off .

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and his godson, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
believed that the happiness of society was more important than that of the
individual. Their philosophy was called Utilitarianism. Utility is the Greatest
Happiness Principle that holds that actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. (Utilitarianism: Essays on Ethics, Religion & Society edited by J. M.
Robson, F. E. L. Priestly, and D. P. Dryer.) Utilitarians believe that pleasure
and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. But they argued
that is is better to be a dissatisfed human being than a satisfed pig. We
should cultivate a capacity for nobler feelings at all times.

Chinese philosophers have also left us words of wisdom on trying to fnd

happiness. Ch'Eng I (1033-1107). He advocated that if we wish to improve our
mental acuity with the object of being happy, we should have few desires. And
without them, we will experience no delusion. Being serious means we are
acting unselfshly. Without seriousness, our mind flls with selfsh desires that
are harmful to our humanity. People do evil because they do not know. The
way to be constant is to change according to circumstances. The Chinese
accentuated humanity believing it is the foundation of goodness which leads
to happiness.

I once knew a man who was thought to be very successful (happy) and was
the envy of many individuals who wished they possessed the possessions he
vaunted. He was a genuine con artist, and when he was eventually caught up
with by the police, he fed to Switzerland but was eventually extradited back to
Italy where he was sentenced to prison for four years for embezzlement and
other crimes.

Listen to his story...

I knew a man in Prato, Italy not far from where I live who was particularly
interested in his image and how it is perceived by others. And I would like
to tell you about him.
I became acquainted with this individual some time ago, and met him for the
frst time in his offce. The more I came to know about him, the more I was
struck with astonishment. And even as I begin to tell this story, I am tempted
to pinch myself to convince myself that I am not dreaming! This true story is
for me a very poignant one indeed.
The personage under discussion is a business consultant (commercialista), a
very successful one at thatif one would judge by appearances only. He is
always answering his cellphone. He drives an enormous white automobile
equipped with the most up-to-date electronic gadgetry. His offce, with three
secretaries, is outftted with computers, fax machines and other modern offce
accruements not always found in Prato. The room adjacent to his
administrative centre is crammed with books and economic magazines and
journals mostly written in English. There is a book in Italian he himself wrote
and published personally but which few people have purchased but which he
has given hundreds of gifts of. He represents many companies, and is often so
busy in his offce, he tells his secretaries to inform certain callers that he is out
of town. He is twenty-seven years old, uses Valium drops to calm his nerves,
and is under doctors care for an ulcer. If you look at the left arm of his huge,
expensive leather desk chair, you will see that it is worn through to the bone
from his nervous hand rubbings. And he has told me, kidding of course, at
least three timesFreudian-slipping all the waythe following: If I dont go
crazy, Ill go to jail! (Kidding, of course!) Naturally, he dresses to kill.
Elegance is all around him. If you enter his place of work, you will be
impressed immediately with an inordinate amount of framed pieces of paper
whichwith the exception of one oil painting of his beautiful, childless wife
are dedications to him for some honour or other, for some diploma from one
university or other, for some seminar or other he has frequented. Although
he never went to university in his own country, he has testaments to his
scholarly savoir faire from many institutions that seem at frst to be reputable
and of an inestimable quality. All of these certifcates are, as might be
expected, framed in very elegant, costly wooden borders which enclose them.
You would be fxed deeply.

Get ready to pinch yourself

Two of these qualifcations are from a school in California where this

character studied for less than two months. The diplomas state clearly that
the man swotted successfully and fulflled regularly the requirements for not
only a Masters degree in Economics, but even a Doctor of Philosophy degree
in Economics. Under these two enclosed parchments is another boxed
declaration, a bit smaller, written on false United States Department of State
stationery attesting to the facts that the two degrees are in buona fde, and
signed not byfor but forged for the United States Secretary of State his
very self!

Get ready to pinch yourself

If we lean towards another wall in the room, two more sheepskins will be
seen. These are from a university in Switzerland, and they proclaim that this
twenty-sevenish someone has studied for not only the Master of Business
Administration, but stillhold on!another Doctor of Philosophy in
Economics! (To date: MA, PhD, MBA, PhD!) Are you counting with me?

Get ready to pinch yourself

One of the truths of the matter here is that this somebody, to qualify for his
Swiss PhD, purchased a PhD thesisof a student recently doctored at a
very famous United States business schoolfrom a company in Ann Arbor,
Michigan and well-known throughout the degree-getting world, had that
thesis translated, and then submitted it in order to receive his Helvetian
documents conferring honour and privilege.

Get ready to pinch yourself

The most recent foray by this man hungry in his extravagant quest for
recognition of his adroitness in business relations, has been the enrollment in
an expensive by post course, with audio-visuals and brilliantly designed
study guides, for yet another MBA (MA, PhD, MBA, PhD, MBA!!!) granted by
an English school which I was informed, by an Oxford professor, is perhaps
the most respectable of its kind and which is much-touted throughout
Europe. And with all of these pegs, our fox wants to return to a famous
business university in his own country toyou guessed it!TEACH!

Get ready to pinch yourself

While he reads some English, especially economic terminology, he cannotI

swear!communicate in English, and if you call to speak to him in English,
one of his secretaries will tell you right off that he is out of town! Call again?
Still out of town.

Our heavily-degreed perpetual student, ever on the march to nail another

HONOUR to his wall to impress his clients, has larceny at heart. If he is to
be a purloiner, he is going to be the best of sharks. His determination and
verve would move you. If it is everybodys business to steal, he will do it
better. He is an artist. He does what he does because he loves its labour for
its own sake. (Cannot we, at least, admire him for this?) And the joy he
affords his dear mother and father, as he sits next to them at Mass every
Sunday morning in his parishs almost empty church, cannot be computed in
Earthly terms.

If you ask him if he thinks what he is doing is eccentric, he will respond

with a boyish grinhis baby face shining, his blue eyes twinkling:
Everybodys doing it!

A cordial thank you to Professor Peter Singer for his

Ethics (Oxford University Press)

Authored by Anthony St. John

Calenzano, Italy
9 October MMXVII
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior
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