Q:
Can you define why it is that people seek thrills? What’s this desire for fun and excitement?
A:
The desire for thrills is simply the desire of a person for a change in his situation. Now, when a person is sick and he doesn’t have enough to eat, so then when he gets well, that’s his biggest thrill. Or when a person is hungry, he doesn’t have what to eat and now he gets enough money to buy a good meal, that’s a big thrill.
But suppose a person is healthy and he has enough money for all of his meals, so then he wants something else. Now he wants thrills! So Hakodosh Boruch Hu says, “You’re a man who likes thrills? I’ll give you a thrill. I’ll put you on the operating table. That’s a thrill.”
Sometimes they give you ether on the operating table and you don’t know what’s taking place. Of course afterwards, in the recovery room, you find out the thrill. And sometimes even during the operation the ether wears out and the surgeon is still cutting. He’s still cutting and he starts telling you not to worry; he says, “Just a few more minutes. We’re almost finished. We’re almost finished.” But it hurts! What a thrill!
Anybody who is looking for thrills, Hakodosh Boruch Hu will supply thrills!
Here’s a fellow going skiing for thrills. Now, he could have stayed home. It’s a big thrill to sit home and to have plenty to eat and to be healthy. But no, that’s not good enough for him. So he goes out and he’s looking to get a broken leg. Ahh! That’s a big thrill.
Thrills mean you want a change in your status. So if you’re suffering, the best thrill is to get well, to get what you need. If you’re hungry, it’s a thrill to eat. But if you’re happy and healthy and you have enough to eat and you’re still looking for thrills, it means you’re looking for trouble because you’re not happy with what you have. If you want empty thrills Hakodosh Boruch Hu is going to give you plenty of thrills. But don’t ask for it.
Thrills means what’s unexpected. So here’s a man that lives, let’s say, in a fine house in New York. He has all the comforts. He has, of course, hot and cold running water. He has a bathroom in the house. He has central heating in the house. Many have air conditioning in the house. He has a refrigerator. He has electric lights. What doesn’t he have?!
But now the travel agency sells him on the glory of going, let’s say, to Honolulu. So he goes to Honolulu and there he goes out, let’s say, slumming and he takes a drink that they sell him; let’s say, some kind of a drink there. And the drink has in it water that comes from a well that’s not sterilized by the city. He gets dysentery or he gets typhoid fever and he comes down with an illness, a parasite in his blood that lasts for months and months. Sometimes he gets yellow jaundice. A true story I’m telling you. I knew the man.
And in case he comes back and he’s still well, so he invents thrills to tell his people back home the good time he didn’t have over there. “Ah! What good times I had over there! What big mosquitoes they had over there! What big bedbugs they have over there! Nothing like you’ll see in America!” And for that he paid a lot of money to make the trip.
So thrills means to look for things that are out of the usual. But it doesn’t mean happiness. To us, to sensible people, the greatest thrill is that you have happiness in life. And true happiness means that nothing wrong, nothing bad, is happening to you.
TAPE # 491