In case you had not yet noticed, I am a huge fan of mythology of all sorts, but I know the most about Greek Mythology because I spent the majority of my teen years obsessing over it. Whilst other people my age were reading Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, I took comfort in the tales of Poseidon, Athena and Aphrodite. Any lover of Greek Mythology knows that the best parts have to do with the raging passion of the perfectly imperfect gods and goddesses. Humans in these tales are nothing more than observers, people for the reader to relate to as the gods and goddesses destroy our flawed perceptions of ourselves and our world. There are many goddesses involved with love and sexual urges in Greek mythology, but there is only one goddess of pleasure and her name is Hedone. She is the daughter of Eros, who happens to be the god of love, and was more specifically the goddess of sensual pleasure and enjoyment. It is worth noting here that Eros was a close companion of Aphrodite's so it makes sense that his daughter would be a bit on the naughty side. In fact, Aphrodite is often listed as the grandmother of Hedone. But Hedone was not only sexual; she was related to anything that could cause one pleasure and had no specific morality. She also represented the pleasures brought about by material wealth, entertainment and a comfortable life. She is even associated with pleasurable dreams. It should come as no surprise that Hedone happens to be where we get the word "hedonism" from. While normal people loved Hedone, ancient Greek philosophers such as Epicurus and Aristotle warned their followers of engaging in too much pleasure. Aristotle specifically thought of Hedone as being only a part of a greater concept known as pathe, the other half of pathe being pain. These philosophers did not trust Hedone because they only valued the pleasure derived from reason, logic and intellectual pursuits, and essentially branded every other form of pleasure as being immoral vices. You still hear this idea of pleasure being bad trotted out today by the stoics, an even more boring form of Greek thought, which argued that all emotions were bad and influenced people to do corrupt and dangerous things. We still hear this moral grandstanding all the time: from the intelligentsia, from the church, from our families. Everyone seems to be down on pleasure nowadays. Everyone wants to be an Ancient Greek philosopher. Surely we need some pain to balance all that pleasure out. So let's talk about Algea, goddess of pain. Algea are actually various daughters of the goddess of strife, Eris. They were all personifications of wrong-doing and negativity such as murder, lies, forgetfulness, pain, and fights. The Algea are referred to as being full of weeping and obsessed with the torture of the body and the mind. They are represented by three minor goddesses: Akhos (distress), Ania (Grief) and Lupe (Pain). Aristotle's argument was essentially that too much pleasure would eventually lead to increased pain, and therefore pleasure should be reserved to "higher" intellectual pursuits. But modern science tells us that is is the other way around. Pain often leads to pleasure. This may sound odd, but think about it for a moment. Do you enjoy spicy food? Even if you do not enjoy five alarm chili, I am sure you use pepper on your salad and in most meals for that matter. What about that runner's high? If you have never experienced it, it gives you the same feeling as cannabis. How about tattoos or piercings or body modification? We do not just do these things because they are appealing to the eye. We do them because our pain censors also release chemicals that causes us great pleasure. Of course, you could be like Aristotle and stoics and rain on everyone's parade, making vast assumptions about how certain people have gone too far with their Hedonism. But what is too far and too far to whom? I personally think we all need a little more Hedone and Algea in our lives.