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hedonic treadmill. Ancient philosophers such as the Stoics and Epicureans - and we will look more closely at them later - were very aware of it, though the term was first coined in the 1970s1 and later developed by a psychologist called Michael Eysenck in the nineties. It refers to the cycle of desire-fulfilment ('hedonism' means 'the pursuit of pleasure'): we want something, we perhaps get it, we feel good for a while and then return to whatever default level of happiness or sadness we enjoyed before. Nothing really changes.