Michelob Ultra’s advertising slogan, “It’s only worth it if you enjoy it,” encapsulates hedonism as transactional: Pleasure is why we work. The effort is mapped onto desire gratification (a dodgy target), and a measure of pleasure is the payout.
Yet, true enjoyment transcends selfishness or one-to-one zero-sum transactions: joy most often arrives in communal moments of excess, allowing joy to spill over and spread without effort.