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I remember reading The Jolly Beggars: A Cantata by Robert Burns when I was 14. I didn't really understand every word of it at the time, but one particular canto stayed with me:
"What is title? What is treasure? What is reputation's care? If we lead a life of pleasure, 'tis no matter how or where!"
I loved it and decided to make it my motto. It was a purely emotional decision based neither on knowledge nor common sense – exactly what you would expect from a teenager.
In my own defense, however, I didn't do it for the sake of gratification or for the blind pursuit of vice. I did it to stand out amidst the prevailing Soviet communist zeitgeist. It was my own way of giving a middle finger to the authorities.
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I'd spent the next two years fully exploring my sensuality and catering to my narcissism. I indulged in every pleasure: ate gourmet foods and drank delicious wines in excess, seduced innocent women, manipulated my friends and close ones, and visited every opium den. Finally, I did the most despicable thing, I... pulled my dear reader's leg.
You've probably guessed by now that I'd borrowed the description of hedonistic pursuit from Oscar Wild. There were no gourmet foods and delicious wines in the Soviet Union, to say nothing of the opium dens. My understanding of hedonism at that time was rather lame by modern standards: an occasional bottle of beer with a Marlboro, a rare surreptitious kiss, and gleaning vicarious pleasures from reading The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses by Apuleius. I am still perplexed how the soviet sensors missed the explicit portrayals of human sex and zoophilia.
But, one nuance elevated these activities to the level of dignified dissent and... grave misdemeanor. If caught red handed, I would have been expelled from school. I had to be very cautious and keep it a secret. The clandestine nature of my quest for hedonism made every puff, every gulp, and every smooch deliciously wicked.
My romance with hedonism didn't last very long, however. I largely abandoned it during my senior year of high school because I had to prepare for my medical school entrance exam, which, if I failed, would have meant conscription into the Soviet military where I would have been subjected to vicious hazing.
To avoid that terrifying prospect, I hit the books. My efforts paid off handsomely - I got accepted. I was ready to elevate my hedonistic lifestyle to the next level. But little did I know that my plans were about to hit a wall.
In Soviet Russia, you had to spend six years in medical school. The first two years are the modern equivalent of a 4-year pre-med education. The course load was insane. I simply had no time for hedonistic frivolities, which meant I had to postpone my pursuit of pleasure indefinitely.
