Some who might be described as pessimistic argue that it is impossible to be happy because we are human and what makes us human is our relentless desire and this desire is irrational. Therefore, the manner in which we are possessed by desire leads to unhappiness and self-destruction. Religion and philosophy call us to exercise control and moderation, but the essence of human nature is marked by a lack of control and an abundance of appetites.
To illustrate, let us look at a business trip my brother went on to Miami many years ago. When he returned from his trip, he looked glum with tired, glazed eyes and said the source of his misery what hanging out in South Beach where there was this club famous for its beautiful women. The club was surrounded by an outdoor patio and you could see the tanned, bare-shouldered, glittery women drinking their glowing margaritas and daiquiris.
My brother had a guide, a Miami native, who whispered into my brother’s ear, “If you think they’re hot, wait to see what’s inside.” So my brother went into the club and sure enough the women were even more beautiful than those inhabiting the outer perimeters of the patio. The guide whispered into my brother’s ear: “There’s a back room, a VIP room, where the women are even more beautiful. But you have to pay the bouncer a hundred bucks.” My brother located the bouncer, paid him the money and the bouncer walked him to this door that was barely visible, seamlessly part of a stucco wall. Then my brother and his guide walked inside and saw that his guide was telling the truth: The women were unimaginably beautiful. Before it was all over, my brother was urged by his guide to pay the bouncers more and more sums of cash as he and his guide entered what seemed like concentric circles in which the deeper you went into the heart of the club, the more beautiful the women became.
Finally, my brother said to me that he was in the club’s “golden nugget,” its very core, and he was satisfied that he was now luxuriating with the most beautiful, pulchritudinous women in the world.
That’s when his guide whispered to him about the tunnel. It went underground and led to this night club in Cuba so secret that fewer than a hundred people in the world even knew about its existence. And, the guide further explained, the women were even more beautiful.
You could travel the underground tunnel but it would cost you three thousand dollars.
My brother felt urged to pay the guide’s friend who ran the tunnel service but before he paid, he asked his guide, “Is this the final destination where the women have maxed-out in beauty? Don’t lie to me. I won’t pay if it’s not the final destination.”
His guide, being a man of truth, divulged that it was not the final destination, that there was a labyrinth of tunnels leading to other secret clubs all over the world and that these clubs inhabited women of more and more rarified beauty and that there was seemingly no end to this Beauty Quest. His guide further explained that each time men entered a more intensely beautiful realm, their desires would multiply tenfold so that their desires would always be far greater than their satisfaction, leading them to restlessness and despair.
After telling me his story, my brother slumped in his easy chair, turned on ESPN, and drank a cold beer, convalescing from his insufferable experience. He vowed he would never return to that Miami club again.
great short story... I was intrigued from start to finish.
Posted by: sara and bob matulich | January 17, 2013 at 07:10 PM