Fast food, slow sorrows

We live in a culture of instant gratification. We want our food prepared fast, we eat it fast, and then we’re done. We treat sex the same way. We have no place for preparation, anticipation, indulgence. Why? Because we’re busy people. We’re in a hurry. We don’t have time. But for all that, when it comes to other people’s misery, we suddenly seem to have all the time in the world to wallow. Whether it’s the news, or your favourite soap opera, the average person will spend plenty of time indulging the tragic feels. I suggest we swap this round, and spend more time on stuff that’s actually fun, whenever we can reasonably do so.

We have undergone something of a revolution in the pace of living, and it’s often pointed out that things like cooking and eating a nice meal, or spending time with loved-ones, are the casualties. The loss of these things has left a gap in our emotional lives that we’re always looking to fill. Some people fill it with religion, some have affairs, some develop addictions, but I think one thing we all do, one way or another, is seek out intense emotional stimulation.

You can see it in our attitude to current affairs. I'm not saying we shouldn't watch the news; it’s really important to be informed about what’s going on around you. But the reaction in social and other media to stories that particularly engage our sense of tragedy is almost gleeful in its sheer ferocity. We take to twitter, and do the verbal equivalent of throwing ourselves on the floor tearing our hair and beating our chests. It’s not that tragedy should be minimized or ignored, or that feeling for distant strangers is wrong, but we seem to get more excited at opportunities to do so than is quite sane.

Another place this comes across is in the TV and films we like to watch. There has always been tragedy in art, and it has often been beautiful, and interesting, and provocative, and important. But now, much of it is simply gruelling. It’s like someone turned the misery dial to eleven with no regard for subtlety, plotlines, characters. You want feels? We’ll give you feels. Have a good old wallow in that, and you’ll definitely know you’re alive.

Can we do better? Can we fill this emotional gap some other way than by seeking out the strongest emotional stimulus we can find, and drowning ourselves in it? I hope so. It’s probably quite difficult in practice, but in theory it’s quite simple: Just fill the gap with the stuff we lost when it was created in the first place. Re-learn the taste of food, and the feel of your lover’s skin. Satisfying your basic bodily desires is not a necessary task to be accomplished so that you can get on with your life. These things are life. They have the power to move us more deeply than anything else if we only let them.

I think we all sort of recognise that there’s something better about spending time cooking a meal with loved-ones than watching a soap on TV. That’s why we have phrases like “quality time”. But my point isn't just that it would be better for you and the people around you, so it’s worth putting in the effort (although that’s true). It’s that we really have quite literally forgotten how to enjoy the simple things. We need to spend time focussing on simple pleasurable bodily sensations, almost like an act of meditation, to try and get this skill back. And not only feeling them bodily, but crucially, letting them move us emotionally. They should. Simple as they are, things like eating and making love are the biggest and most important things we will ever do.

Not everyone has this luxury. Some are mired in their own sorrows, not wallowing in other people’s. Others don’t have time for TV or the news or reading, so it’s not so much that they are filling the gap with the wrong things, as that they have no time to fill it at all. These people have my sympathy, and I'm afraid I have no easy solution for them. But I think most of us really do have the time, and our lives are not so bad that this is impossible.

By all means keep your so-called higher pleasures – your art and literature – they are not the problem. Rid your life of anything that you indulge in purely to provoke an emotional reaction, even though that reaction is misery. I promise you won’t get bored if you fill the gap with simple pleasures. Rediscover preparation, anticipation and indulgence in the simplest and most basic aspects of life, and you will quite possibly never be bored again.