I was intrigued by this passage from "The Four Loves":

"Say your prayers in a garden early, ignoring steadfastly the dew, the birds and the flowers, and you will come away overwhelmed by its freshness and joy; go there in order to be overwhelmed and, after a certain age, nine times out of ten nothing will happen to you" (page 22).

I could not help being reminded of Lewis' description of his search for "joy" in "Surprised by Joy." In a manner similar to the above example of the garden, Lewis was continually groping to be "overwhelmed" by the experience which he defined simply as "joy." However, the more he sought for it, the more this "joy" eluded him.

Is this something that has occurred to us, and of which we have at least a partial understanding? I mean, are there things that we have done so often for the pleasure it brings, that we know longer take pleasure in them, or become immune to their "pleasure" entirely?

This does even have to happen to "major" pleasures, as it seems, with the example of the garden, that Lewis believes this can happen with any pleasure, no matter how "small." Thus, it appears that a drug addict can lose the initial sense of pleasure brought by the drugs, while a man or woman who walks in the countryside "for fun" may lose their pleasure as well . . .

That is, they lose their sense of pleasure if they are trying to obtain this sense of pleasure: Lewis seems to suggest that real "overwhelming" may only happen when one is not looking for it. Thus, this leads to a new question: are the best pleasures of this life really the unsought-for, or even the unexpected? . . .