You took a wrong turn. As you round the bend, you see a sign: “We work hard and play hard.”

You keep walking. One group off to your left is called Success. People here are trying to get on while, they say, making the world a better etc. They do and do and do. Prestige, they beg of you. To be Somebody at least.

The other off to your right: Pleasure. All bared biceps and exposed clavicles. The lovers of sights and sounds, Plato said. The eyes, the hands, the mouths, the ears all delight as much as they can in the pleasant and the agreeable. The minimum threshold is comfort. The maximum is Instagram vanitas.

What you didn’t deduce was that the road to Success and that to Pleasure not only, as the saying goes, are two sides of the same coin but also lead to the same place.

That place is Hell on Earth. Otherwise known as modern culture.