turtle
Little reptile, how clever a person do you think that i would be if i revealed that to you? 
Anyway, i value intelligence over cleverness. Cleverness can get the best of us too.
little reptile,
Look over at my avatar? What do you see? Is that boring to you? Well, it very well might be. For you, it might be a slow log carrying you down a slow-flowing river as the sun warms you deeply within. To each his own. But silence is never boring. And i stay within it until the little “bell” goes off in my brain telling me it’s time to leave it. Perhaps the only way in which the silence is boring to someone is if they are boring to their self. I don’t mean you, little reptile.
I could never bump my head on the bottom because there really is no bottom to it. It’s empty space - silence…no bottom.
Be the Silence!
Ok Arc, I’ll attempt your questions… starting with the first…
Well, I could also go for a tuna melt. But really… the things that have been most meaningful to me were the things that seemed the hardest and most painful at the time. It’s only looking back that I get a kind of pleasure from them. Pounding through a swamp thigh deep in muck, soaking wet to my waist in the stifling heat and covered with black flies, deer flies, horse flies and all other things that bite doing back breaking labor, for 12 hours straight with no one around and nothing but a peanut butter sandwhich and the water jug I emptied by lunch, carrying 40 pounds around my waist and knowing that I had to bend over 3000 times to make it worth my while, because each time was just for 7 cents.
I want to say that I really want pleasure… and I do, but its a longer term and not very immediate/hedonistic type of pleasure.
I saw a property, 5 acres for sale in the maritimes. On one side there is 500 feet of ocean front, and on the other, 500 feet of a calmer and protected bay, that connects around to the ocean. Rocky beach on both. Possibility of building a warf. It’s untouced land, no buildings on it, just forest. It’s on Cape Breton island, which connects to mainland Canada. It’s for sale at dirt cheap. (About the cost of a new car). Partly because it’s 3 hours from the nearest airport, and there’s no major towns around (so jobs nearby are scarce)… anyways, it’s really cheap. 2 neighbours in a mile radius. But right on the ocean, and a bay. At the moment, that’s what I really want. I’m thinking about making an offer. I could probably afford it, if I emptied my savings. But I wouldn’t have much left over for buiding materials. I guess I could put a trailer on it for the time being… but then there’s the issue of work out there. I’d have to drive like 45 mins to the nearest major center. I guess I could buy it as an investment. But if I owned it, I’m not sure I could keep myself away from it. And winter is coming…
So yea, I think I really want meaningful experiences… that I call pleasurable, even if they’re not really at the time.
oh what can I say about ilp…us dummies…it seems that regularly a person comes and stirs up the pot and then leaves…I wonder what is going on…remember hobbes…how about dragon and now tyrannus…they seem similar…
von Rivers
Good morning, von Rivers 
So ~ did you ever get that tuna melt? I did. 
.
I can agree with you there insofar surmounting them goes. They teach us about ourselves too. For me, it would also be the experiences, the ones which I found most rare.
Aside from that, can you describe the “pleasure” you felt in thinking about that?
Wow - you have created a picture here of quite some ordeal. You were a Superman! 
What, in your estimation, do you think gave you the will to continue that?
Perhaps it is not so much “pleasure” that you are looking for. Well, I suppose on might say that pleasure is what pleases us. But that can be a shallow kind of thing or a deeply felt thing. You’re looking for a deeper contentment and the “good life” in a richly felt spiritual sense, perhaps.
It sounds really beautiful. Quiet and so much solitude which you like ~ and water, water, water.
If you really want it, as you seem to, you had better give it some thought soon before someone else does.
And if you really want it, you will make it work…no matter what…or at least you will (not literally) die trying. But you do need to take the time to think things out.
Imagine yourself as owning it ( or not so much owning it 
as being its caretaker).
Close your eyes and see yourself there - you have become a part of it and it you. Hear it crying out to you - von Rivers…I am yours…you are mine. Come and get me. But seriously though.
But of course, it is entirely up to you. But I rather think that anyone who can handle the flies and muck and everything else you spoke of above, could handle that.
“It’s the good life…”
Go to it - do it - it is calling to you.
And sometimes those meaningful experiences come to us in the moment when we’re not looking for them.
Ps. Don’t forget to dress warmly in the winter. 
It can’t be defined…it can only be experienced. And afterwards, it’s difficult to define it.
Yeah, right!!
us dummies----joker has let the cat out of the bag…duh
What does that mean?
see post cat out of bag
Joker has admitted to being tyrannus–a sock puppet.
…and Joker is Realunoriginal?
Little reptile, do you realize just how many threads have that expression “the cat out of the bag’ the cat is out of the bag”.
We silly humans really need to use our imagination and come up with more expressions and metaphors.
us dummies-------I think dragon is someone else…maybe joker again…
dummies-----I don’t think we’ve figured out what it’s all about…what’s it about, for us dummies?
IDK but us dummies are not inferior to the great ilp philosophers…
He was a Christian. So no, or we are dealing with a dissociative personality disorder.
well us dummies…what do we have here on ilp…tyrannus is on a roll…jay and kat are figuring out death…
what are we dummies to do…
most of my free time is spent thinking about baseball… it keeps this dummy occupied…