So Happy Together
You know what's great? Happiness.
And you know what sucks? Boredom.
I've been on a break for the last 6 weeks and the lesson I've taken away from it is I don't much like being bored. The problem that goes along with this, though, is that I don't much like work. Work, it turns out, can be the antidote to being bored. This came as a substantial surprise to me, as I had long been under the impression that the antidote to boredom was Facebook. But under closer scrutiny, my experience on Facebook, or on most of the Internets in general, is basically just a low-level state of boredom.
Think about it: sure, there are some juicy pieces of gossip on FB, but in reality they are few and far between. For every engagement announcement or "relationship has ended" item on the news feed thee are 20 photo albums or status updates from that weird guy you had one class with sophomore year. Yes, Kurt, I'm sure your "LOLZ ugly sweater party!!!" was fun, but right now, all I can think of is how defriending you would give me 1/10th of a Whopper.
Yes, Facebook is an easy escape, but is it really fun? Joy-inducing? Life-affirming? No, it is not. It's boring, but it's a kind of boring that you just keep on coming back to because it is so easy to do.
Writing, on the other hand, is work (for me at least). I love this blog, but I also hate doing it from time to time. It's frustrating or intimidating or guilt-inducing, but it is never boring. How strange is it, then, that in the last 6 weeks I can measure the time I've spent on writing in hours, but the time I've spent on Facebook (or other parts of the Internets) in days.
It becomes clear to me that the more enjoyable something is before doing it, the less enjoyable it is after it's over. The most exciting part of Facebook or email is right before you log in and get you new notifications or your new messages. The messages themselves are, more often than not, extremely mundane.
And you know what sucks? Boredom.
I've been on a break for the last 6 weeks and the lesson I've taken away from it is I don't much like being bored. The problem that goes along with this, though, is that I don't much like work. Work, it turns out, can be the antidote to being bored. This came as a substantial surprise to me, as I had long been under the impression that the antidote to boredom was Facebook. But under closer scrutiny, my experience on Facebook, or on most of the Internets in general, is basically just a low-level state of boredom.
Think about it: sure, there are some juicy pieces of gossip on FB, but in reality they are few and far between. For every engagement announcement or "relationship has ended" item on the news feed thee are 20 photo albums or status updates from that weird guy you had one class with sophomore year. Yes, Kurt, I'm sure your "LOLZ ugly sweater party!!!" was fun, but right now, all I can think of is how defriending you would give me 1/10th of a Whopper.
Yes, Facebook is an easy escape, but is it really fun? Joy-inducing? Life-affirming? No, it is not. It's boring, but it's a kind of boring that you just keep on coming back to because it is so easy to do.
Writing, on the other hand, is work (for me at least). I love this blog, but I also hate doing it from time to time. It's frustrating or intimidating or guilt-inducing, but it is never boring. How strange is it, then, that in the last 6 weeks I can measure the time I've spent on writing in hours, but the time I've spent on Facebook (or other parts of the Internets) in days.
It becomes clear to me that the more enjoyable something is before doing it, the less enjoyable it is after it's over. The most exciting part of Facebook or email is right before you log in and get you new notifications or your new messages. The messages themselves are, more often than not, extremely mundane.
Compare that experience to writing where the dread I feel before the act goes away about halfway through, giving way to general elation and a glowing feeling which can last an hour after I'm done.
Look, I made a graph!
Basically, the issue here is that the perception of how fun something will be after you finish it is way off. I think that I'll feel really happy after spending time on Facebook, but it turns out I'm wrong. I think I'll be really unhappy after writing but I'm wrong about that as well. Basically, as the excellent book, "Stumbling on Happiness" states, we're just piss-poor at guessing what will make our future selves happy.
It might help to think about yourself as multiple people who keep on making the same mistake of thinking you're all the same person. Example:
Sarah's lactose intolerant. Regardless, she still loves the cheese. I offer Sarah some cheese and she accepts. Said cheese is, as expected, scrumptious, and the the stomach ache that follows is largely unpleasant. Here's where it all went wrong: Sarah made the decision based on the assumption that she'd be the one enjoying the cheese, but through the passage of time, she's no longer that person! It's as if I gave the pleasure of eating the cheese to one version of her (Sarah 1), and the discomfort of the stomach ache to another version of her (Sarah 2)... the version of her that she now has the misfortune of being.
The decision was made by Sarah 1, so it makes sense that she would choose to eat the cheese. She enjoys all the benefits of the choice, while Sarah 2 must pay for all the consequences. It's as if you were brought to a restaurant and told that you wouldn't have to pay for anything you ate. You run up an enormous tab, and by the end of the evening, You 1 is long gone, and you're You 2, who must now foot the bill.
You 1 always chooses what's best for You 1, which, more often than not, is just terrible for You 2. So even though You 2 always feels better after writing for an hour instead of looking at Kurt's drunken holiday photos (LOL), You 1 still think it sound like fun, so that's what it chooses.
Maybe not everyone has this problem. Maybe some people's You 1s aren't total short-sighted morons. But mine definitely can be. Thus I've spend the last 6 weeks trying to treat boredom with Facebook which, sadly, never works. Ezra 1 is a slow, slow learner.
So I have a new rule of thumb. If it sounds like it's not that much fun now, I'm doing it. Run five miles? I'm there. Get screamed at by a martial arts instructor? Totally. (More on this one next week.) Eat salads? Awesome! Because this way, Ezra 1 does all the heavy lifting, and Ezra 2 just gets to bask in the afterglow of his accomplishments.
Ezra 1: Hey, Ezra 2, I finished writing the blog post!
Ezra 2: Awesome. Thanks, buddy!
Ezra 1: No sweat! Now let's eat blocks of cheese and look at Kurt's cleverly captioned photos!
Ezra 2: (2 hours later, covered in cheese and still on Facebook) Damnit.
Look, I made a graph!
Basically, the issue here is that the perception of how fun something will be after you finish it is way off. I think that I'll feel really happy after spending time on Facebook, but it turns out I'm wrong. I think I'll be really unhappy after writing but I'm wrong about that as well. Basically, as the excellent book, "Stumbling on Happiness" states, we're just piss-poor at guessing what will make our future selves happy.
It might help to think about yourself as multiple people who keep on making the same mistake of thinking you're all the same person. Example:
Sarah's lactose intolerant. Regardless, she still loves the cheese. I offer Sarah some cheese and she accepts. Said cheese is, as expected, scrumptious, and the the stomach ache that follows is largely unpleasant. Here's where it all went wrong: Sarah made the decision based on the assumption that she'd be the one enjoying the cheese, but through the passage of time, she's no longer that person! It's as if I gave the pleasure of eating the cheese to one version of her (Sarah 1), and the discomfort of the stomach ache to another version of her (Sarah 2)... the version of her that she now has the misfortune of being.
The decision was made by Sarah 1, so it makes sense that she would choose to eat the cheese. She enjoys all the benefits of the choice, while Sarah 2 must pay for all the consequences. It's as if you were brought to a restaurant and told that you wouldn't have to pay for anything you ate. You run up an enormous tab, and by the end of the evening, You 1 is long gone, and you're You 2, who must now foot the bill.
You 1 always chooses what's best for You 1, which, more often than not, is just terrible for You 2. So even though You 2 always feels better after writing for an hour instead of looking at Kurt's drunken holiday photos (LOL), You 1 still think it sound like fun, so that's what it chooses.
Maybe not everyone has this problem. Maybe some people's You 1s aren't total short-sighted morons. But mine definitely can be. Thus I've spend the last 6 weeks trying to treat boredom with Facebook which, sadly, never works. Ezra 1 is a slow, slow learner.
So I have a new rule of thumb. If it sounds like it's not that much fun now, I'm doing it. Run five miles? I'm there. Get screamed at by a martial arts instructor? Totally. (More on this one next week.) Eat salads? Awesome! Because this way, Ezra 1 does all the heavy lifting, and Ezra 2 just gets to bask in the afterglow of his accomplishments.
Ezra 1: Hey, Ezra 2, I finished writing the blog post!
Ezra 2: Awesome. Thanks, buddy!
Ezra 1: No sweat! Now let's eat blocks of cheese and look at Kurt's cleverly captioned photos!
Ezra 2: (2 hours later, covered in cheese and still on Facebook) Damnit.
Comments
I think the following is relevent:
"Because none of this is enjoyment: it's consumption. Enjoyment is slow, deliberate, considered, decadent. Enjoyment is a body enjoying itself; it is the biological, organic drive for pleasure, the organism finding pleasure in its own experience.
Consumption is allopoetic: it is based in contingency. So when I buy the new 42 inch plasma tv or get a lapdance or buy a bottle of Cristal, I'm not enjoying my body's experience of these things: I am enjoying my consumption of them. My pleasure is not in and of my body; my pleasure melds with the object—the lapdance, the shoe, the tv. I therefore come to think that the expression of my pleasure must come from these things—not from my own body."
BTW, my cat Cricket loves the cheesey. (my boyfriend calls it the heesey when referring to Cricket and his cheesey)