{"id":13226,"date":"2025-09-06T16:31:39","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T23:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/?p=13226"},"modified":"2025-09-06T16:31:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T23:31:39","slug":"saturday-night-at-the-oldies-the-perils-of-pleasure-along-the-lost-highway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/09\/06\/saturday-night-at-the-oldies-the-perils-of-pleasure-along-the-lost-highway\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Perils of Pleasure Along the Lost Highway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Wilde<\/a>,\u00a0De Profundis<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a FLANEUR, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Compare the words Plato puts in the mouth of Socrates in the\u00a0Phaedo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

. . . every pleasure and pain has a kind of nail, and nails and pins her [the soul] to the body, and gives her a bodily nature, making her think that whatever the body says is true. (tr. F. J. Church St. 83)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Oscar<\/a><\/p>\n

From Oscar Wilde to Plato to\u00a0Hank<\/a>\u00a0Williams\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0channeled hauntingly through Kurt Nilsen and Willie Nelson:<\/p>\n

I’m a rollin’ stone all alone and lost
\nFor a life of sin I have paid the cost
\nWhen I pass by all the people say
\nJust another guy on the lost highway<\/p>\n

Just a deck of cards and a jug of wine
\nAnd a woman’s lies make a life like mine
\nOn the day we met, I went astray
\nI started rollin’ down that lost highway<\/p>\n

I was just a lad, nearly 22
\nNeither good nor bad, just a kid like you
\nAnd now I’m lost, too late to pray
\nLord I paid the cost, on the lost highway<\/p>\n

Now boys don’t start your ramblin’ ’round
\nOn this road of sin are you sorrow bound
\nTake my advice or you’ll curse the day.
\nYou started rollin’ down that lost highway.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tom Petty\u00a0version<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Byrds,\u00a0Life in Prison<\/a><\/p>\n

Warren Zevon,\u00a0Carmelita<\/a><\/p>\n

Nina Simone,\u00a0House of the Rising Sun<\/a><\/p>\n

Doc Watson, Tom Dooley<\/a>.\u00a0 The Kingston Trio’s ‘collegiate folk’\u00a0 version<\/a>\u00a0from 1958.<\/p>\n

Merle Haggard,\u00a0The Fugitive<\/a><\/p>\n

Marty Robbins,\u00a0Devil Woman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oscar Wilde,\u00a0De Profundis: The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a FLANEUR, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own … Continue reading “Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Perils of Pleasure Along the Lost Highway”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,420],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-pleasure-and-pain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13227,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions\/13227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}