A life without pleasure

I am having something far worse than depression in which I feel completely numb all the time 24/7 and can't experience any degree of pleasure whatsoever no matter what I do or how I think. This is something that remains there all the time everyday and is not getting better despite practically every type of medication, therapy, etc. and I'm not even sure it will get better and if there might be a strong possibility that it will never get better. This is how I feel about it and how much I value pleasure:

Being alive is superior to being dead as long as you have pleasure. Therefore, since pleasure is emotional life, that makes it superior to being numb (emotionally dead) in which you have nothing more than mere thoughts and duty in life. Pleasure is the absolute and defining life force of "living" and a living thing that defines you as a living person and is what makes you a better and superior person (in comparison to yourself) because anyone would know just how good of a experience pleasure is and how much it makes life worth living and is the only thing to me that makes life worth living.

So even if you were a psychopath and killed many people, as long as you have all the pleasure in the world, that would make you a far better and superior person than if you were someone who is depressed and emotionally numb and helped and cared for other people. Again, this would only be in comparison to yourself and not comparing yourself to other people as there is no comparing yourself to others anyway.

Another convincing argument for the radical reasoning I just made above is that thoughts and such without pleasure are nothing more than any other part of the brain for biological functions (such as parts of the brain responsible for movement, breathing, etc.). But pleasure is your emotional well-being here and is the only thing that makes your life worth living and is the only thing that allows you to make the best of your life. So this is why I come to the conclusion that living your life through pleasure (even if you were a psychopath) would be the only best thing here (only for you though) in this situation as opposed to living your life feeling numb and depressed and helping others being nothing more than mere biological functions (thoughts and actions). It would be better for you as a person because you would, again, be nothing more than mere biological functioning without pleasure regardless of how much you chose to help others and regardless of how much these helped individuals look up to you and admire you. They would have a pleasurable sense of high value and worth towards you, but you will not even be allowed to have a pleasurable sense of value and worth towards yourself in helping others and in them admiring and looking up to you.

But, however, it would be better for other people if you chose not to be the psychopath and instead chose to be numb and depressed and help other people. So even if you did choose to become the lesser (nothing) person with nothing more than mere biological functions, you would be able to help other people suffering which is obviously a great thing.

As for trying to make the best of your life and helping others and such having no pleasure (being nothing more than biological functioning), I would unfortunately have to say good luck on that. You will soon find that you are nothing as a person without pleasure regardless of how much you help others, regardless of who you are as a person and what your attitude is in life, and no matter what you do in life. You would find that life is completely worthless. As a result, you would then go to drastic measures to try and get your pleasure back such as electric convulsive therapy and wishing that you would rather be in a hospital bed with cancer and many other horrible things to happen to you at the same time--as long as it meant having your pleasure back.

Also, as for people who give such "advice" such as: " I am 53 and have never had pleasure in my life, I am used to it," this is not the type of advice I need as I am an emotionally sensitive human being and not some robot who would be fine living a life without pleasure. Robots are fine living a life without pleasure because that's what they are--emotionally insensitive functioning machines. But I, on the other hand, am an emotionally sensitive human being who is not fine living a life without pleasure and will never be fine with such a thing because, again, I am a sensitive human being and will forever remain a sensitive human being.

In a way, people who give such "advice" are robots themselves because if they were truly a caring sensitive human being and truly cared for my emotional well-being (pleasure), they would instead offer me hope and comfort that I will once again experience pleasure instead of simply just giving the cold insensitive message of just getting used to it or that "Many people have problems that they have to deal with, so just deal and live with it."

I relate to your entire post, I have had this disease since I was 12, and have not felt pleasure nor pain since I was 16, only self hatred, now I am 26 and I have been taking a new medication for 3 weeks. I have hope that I am going to get better because of these pills and then I can start building up a life. I feel you and I hope you find hope.

Anhedonia is the technical term for the inability to experience pleasure.

I wish that I could give advice, but I too experience anhedonia (more specifically, I don't really feel emotions) and I'm not sure how/if it could be overcome.

Maybe this will be interesting, It's from someone who has thought about happiness, pleasure and a meningful life. Maybe it will help you see things from a different angle.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/06/28 ... -seligman/