The reality of current pleasures

Malcom Muggeridge writes "A Twentieth-Century Testimony":

When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, explaining and experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer.

In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, "licking the earth."

We live in a world where instant gratification is available and encouraged. Television and movies are major influences in increasing people's expectations. They graphically portray what other people have and can do in living the life of ease and "fun."

from the book 'the 7 habits of highly effective people;