Indulgence and sensory gratification is ALL we have been given(?) on an individual basis,be it the gratification of,for example,books,baseball,children,gardening,traveling,autos,food,friends,animals and everything else under the sun.Pain and pleasure may be polar opposites to us humans ,but are just more parts of the whole of human characteristics,objectively speaking.Your judgement may or may not be right.
you say this is objective.....it seems to be subject to your experiences. i have experienced more than what you are speaking of and i admit, what i say is subjective. there is something else that comes into play when i begin to pull away from sensory/ego gratification. i certainly don't live that way all of the time, or even half of the time, yet, but i have experienced it.
the same thing that gives us life in the first place, you just have to be willing to give up anything and everything to find your meaning and when you find it....you must cling onto it because it is divine. You can live so long in the dark searching for a light.....but once you find the light, never again will you be in darkness. jah love
thinking about this a bit more. as i come closer to the end of my life, its meaning becomes clearer. i think the choices made and knowing you made mistakes, but you learnt from them. the other thing is to enjoy life without looking for its meaning. if you look too hard, you may miss out on the good stuff i still think keeping it simple as possible