The inevitable trajectory of the rock biography is from revelry to rehab before a closing treatise on the more simple latter-day pleasures of veganism, trail running and parenthood. It’s much rarer, and even refreshing, to find those who either don’t regret their excess or are even still continuing it, like the old Mitch Hedberg joke of ‘I used to take drugs, I still do but I used to too.’ Likewise, we shy away from somewhat more obvious explanation that people abandon a hedonistic lifestyle not because of some insight into the ultimate hollowness of pleasure but because, with the odd exception, their body doesn’t let them do it anymore. No deep lessons learnt; just hangovers which can no longer be withstood.
But perhaps this arc fundamentally understands what hedonism is and how it was originally conceived. If we view hedonism as a heritage of second century Greek philosopher - and the word hedonism derives simply from the Greek for pleasure - Epicurus, he was not a notably excessive fellow. Writing to a disciple, he requested ‘a small pot of cheese, so that I may indulge myself whenever I wish’. The point is that within the modest, simple living which Epicurus advised, small pleasures like a bowl of fresh water or a salty cheese attain even greater sensuousness. An Epicurean existence is not to overindulge pleasure but to derive it from simple sources.
Of course, a small pot of cheese doesn’t always feel enough to get you through the night, and my younger self would have wolfed it down in an instant. Many of us have periods in our youth where we’re up for every pleasure going. I remember, at the age of 28, standing in a crammed bar in Berlin, thinking ‘I’m going to drink and party as much as possible this year.’ And I did, I went out four nights a week, I got drunk, and I went to bed with everyone who’d agree to do so. Many a Saturday morning saw me walking home from the club with the morning light breaking. Incidentally, if there’s anything worse than after you’ve been on the ale for twelve hours witnessing someone eat a kebab for breakfast, I’ve yet to see it, and I’ve done three full runs at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Now of course, I miss those times – the energy and excitement of wild revelry, the dawning adventure of the drunken world. But two things are worse than remembering it plangently; one, attempting to do it now, in my declining early-40s body, and two, to never have done it in the first place. Tony Parsons said of George Michael, as the latter ramped up his partying in midlife, that he had got hedonism more wrong than anybody he’d ever met, and few things might set you up for midlife catastrophe more than trying to make up for a well-behaved youth.
What it doesn’t mean though is that I no longer have the spirit of hedonism; it’s just triggered by lower levels of stimuli. I need less to provoke the same amount of pleasure. Previously, I went hog-wild in celebration of life and my youthful vigour, but now I drink one beer at the end of long week’s work while watching a retro horror movie and it feels like pleasure indeed. You work hard, you try to be a good colleague and husband, and when you uncork that beer it feels as decadent as all those distant nights out. Of course, you’re on a schedule; you inevitably have responsibilities, even responsibilities in your leisure time, you can no longer follow a night from bottle to bottle and bar to club. But for those few minutes drinking with a friend you feel truly free.