I. The Paradox of Satiety and the Hedonic Baseline
Even the most enjoyable music becomes mundane after a while. We eat the most delicious meal only until we are full; then, the desire vanishes. The cities we long to visit become boring after living there for a time; yet those same cities, which we abandon out of boredom, remain centers of attraction for others. Hedonic adaptation is the tendency for initial emotional responses to diminish over time, with the individual returning to nearly their original baseline of happiness and satisfaction. This is why we disrupt our perfect order—just to feel pleasure again. For a “figure-ground” relationship to exist, there must be deprivation in our lives.
II. The Superpower’s Descent: Climbing Down the Peak
The USA is descending from its own summit for this very reason. It is like a climber who throws himself down a sharp slope just to experience the thrill of climbing new mountains again. For nearly seventy years, world leadership has been an inheritance for the United States. New administrations act like spoiled heirs who do not understand the weight or meaning of this legacy. With the end of the Cold War in 1990, the great external threat vanished. When no threat remained, the system began to manufacture its own risks—much like wealthy children injecting danger into their lives just to feel a rush. Events like September 11, 2001—regardless of how they are interpreted—created a temporary sense of excitement and unity. The US produced a short-term sense of meaning through the perception of an attack on its own soil. But as that, too, was exhausted, the country began to turn on its own identity.
III. From Visionary Pioneer to Reactive Heir
The USA is a nation of immigrants; it grew on the idea of the “New World.” It claimed it would transcend the stagnation of the Old World with a fresh understanding. It was promised that everyone could be free, and a new identity would be born against the decaying institutions of humanity. However, like any human entity, the country spoiled once it grew comfortable. First, long-term visionary projects like space exploration were neglected, then diplomacy was pushed to the background. A century-old diplomatic tradition has now given way to “taking the easy way out.” The fastest way to take the easy way is through military operations; this is, in reality, a childish reaction.
IV. The Short-Sightedness of “Child Governments”
This is where hedonic adaptation re-enters the frame. Children will play useless games for hours but avoid useful lessons because they see the results of the game immediately, while the results of the lesson take years. This foresight, which children lack, is also absent in “childish governments.” The heir-apparent governments of the US believe they are solving problems with customs duties, visas, and sudden sanctions; yet these reflexes only produce long-term problems. This is a common occurrence in individual life as well: a person getting in their own way. Because if there are no problems left to solve, there is no meaning left in living.
V. The Schopenhauerian Pendulum of Geopolitics
The USA is creating its own problems because no one else is creating them for it. Individuals, too, disrupt their flawless routines after hedonic adaptation just to feel emotion again. They need a crisis to produce meaning. Sometimes, they even head toward annihilation—just to feel that they exist. The crisis of the USA is not a loss of power, but the banalization of power. A system accustomed to the summit cannot feel the value of staying there. Hedonic adaptation unsettles empires just as it does individuals. And restlessness usually produces movement, not wisdom.
VI. The Architect of Its Own Disaster
The current state of the USA is like a global rehearsal of Schopenhauer’s famous dictum: “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.” When the “pain” (the external threat) disappeared with the end of the Cold War, what remained was an unbearable “boredom.” This is the most dangerous stage of hedonic adaptation: the individual or the state begins to sever its own limbs to escape the monotony of peace. The USA is no longer an explorer discovering new worlds; it is an heir smashing the walls of the palace inherited from his father with a sledgehammer, driven mad by the silence within. Walls built with tariffs and worlds narrowed by visas are not truly meant to keep the outside out; they are meant to provide a veneer of “struggle” to an internal meaninglessness.
VII. Conclusion: The Final Cry for Existence
Ultimately, a perfect order is a prison for human nature. The USA, like any organism that has reached total satiety, is engineering its own disaster to reanimate its numbed nerve endings. This path toward annihilation is, in fact, the last and most tragic cry uttered just to feel alive again. This giant, standing in its own way, will take not only an order but all the false pleasures provided by that order down with it when it falls.
