Doing It The Hard Way
12:00pm, 7/14/09. At the F Street movie theater, there's a line wrapped around the side of the building filled with a group of teen girls (and some boys) dressed up in capes and Gryffindor ties. They have another 12 hours to go before Harry Potter 6 premiers, and the high in Davis today is 103 degrees.
To add to the spectacle, there's a channel 3 news van parked outside, and a reporter with slick hair is putting in an earpierce before reporting on these fans. I think the reporter's either Mike, David, or Brian, but honestly all their hair looks pretty much the same.
Despite anything else you can say about these kids, they definitely care about Harry Potter.
And I bet they're going to enjoy the movie more than anyone else in that theater.
For it is as that famous dead white guy said, "That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly."
I might just be talking out of my ass here, but I think old T-Paine has a point. My life is pretty easy. Running water at the turn of a faucet. Light at the touch of a button. Food at the purchase of a sandwich. If you're young, able-bodied, and at least middle-class in America, there's very little work to be done if you don't want to do it.
And it makes sense. Work is, by definition, something you don't want to do. If you want to do it, it no longer becomes work, but rather, is challenging play.
I'm afraid that given the ease of my life, I may be suffering from happiness inflation.
Yes, in fact, that's exactly it. Monetary inflation comes when there's a glut of money flooding the market. Or, in the case of sandwiches (something I understand much better than money), if someone inundates the market with cheap sandwiches, then the price of sandwiches will fall correspondingly.
I can't help but think back to my time in Malaysia, which was a great deflater of happiness. Everything was hard there- a movie theater was a 7 hour overnight bus ride away, simple interactions with store owners involved ridicule and bewilderment, and any time you stepped outside you soaked through your clothes with a liter of heat-induced sweat. To do anything took work, so you were damn sure to appreciate everything.
I saw terrible, terrible movies on weekend trips to Kuala Lumpur (I'm looking at you, 27 Dresses and Made of Honor), but they made me so happy because I knew it was rare to enjoy air conditioning with Sarah and our fellow English-speaking ETAs. Afterwards we'd get a drink or sushi, or "Mexican food," and I'm not sure I've ever been happier. It was a week's worth of enjoyment and freedom packed into a weekend, and we knew we had to soak it in, because it'd be another week before we got to feel it again.
I've always heard that you only get out of something what you put into it, and it's true. But no one ever tells you that it's your pain and discomfort that you're putting into it. That's the alchemy of experience. You put in 12 hours of waiting in line in three-digit weather wearing black capes, and you get the most incredible 2.5 hours of cinema that you've ever experienced.
See? It's magic.
It's with this idea in mind that Sarah and I set out for Impossible Acres, a pick-your-own fruit farm. The high in Davis was over 100 once again, and I figured the more epic the situation, the tastier the fruits.
We trudged through weeds and stickers to pluck dozens of choice raspberries, wilt under the sun, seek out the plumpest white peaches from the orchard, and joyfully bake for an hour amid the smells of warm apricots and apples.
I don't know if it was the half-gallon of water we had sweated out, or simply the relief of standing back in our non-burning kitchen, but when we bit into one of our prized peaches, it was the best thing I had eaten in years.
So to recap, the magic equation is:
Hell-worthy temperature+ hours of your precious time= one incredible moment
There. Now go out there and be epic.
To add to the spectacle, there's a channel 3 news van parked outside, and a reporter with slick hair is putting in an earpierce before reporting on these fans. I think the reporter's either Mike, David, or Brian, but honestly all their hair looks pretty much the same.
Despite anything else you can say about these kids, they definitely care about Harry Potter.
And I bet they're going to enjoy the movie more than anyone else in that theater.
For it is as that famous dead white guy said, "That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly."
I might just be talking out of my ass here, but I think old T-Paine has a point. My life is pretty easy. Running water at the turn of a faucet. Light at the touch of a button. Food at the purchase of a sandwich. If you're young, able-bodied, and at least middle-class in America, there's very little work to be done if you don't want to do it.
And it makes sense. Work is, by definition, something you don't want to do. If you want to do it, it no longer becomes work, but rather, is challenging play.
I'm afraid that given the ease of my life, I may be suffering from happiness inflation.
Yes, in fact, that's exactly it. Monetary inflation comes when there's a glut of money flooding the market. Or, in the case of sandwiches (something I understand much better than money), if someone inundates the market with cheap sandwiches, then the price of sandwiches will fall correspondingly.
I can't help but think back to my time in Malaysia, which was a great deflater of happiness. Everything was hard there- a movie theater was a 7 hour overnight bus ride away, simple interactions with store owners involved ridicule and bewilderment, and any time you stepped outside you soaked through your clothes with a liter of heat-induced sweat. To do anything took work, so you were damn sure to appreciate everything.
I saw terrible, terrible movies on weekend trips to Kuala Lumpur (I'm looking at you, 27 Dresses and Made of Honor), but they made me so happy because I knew it was rare to enjoy air conditioning with Sarah and our fellow English-speaking ETAs. Afterwards we'd get a drink or sushi, or "Mexican food," and I'm not sure I've ever been happier. It was a week's worth of enjoyment and freedom packed into a weekend, and we knew we had to soak it in, because it'd be another week before we got to feel it again.
I've always heard that you only get out of something what you put into it, and it's true. But no one ever tells you that it's your pain and discomfort that you're putting into it. That's the alchemy of experience. You put in 12 hours of waiting in line in three-digit weather wearing black capes, and you get the most incredible 2.5 hours of cinema that you've ever experienced.
See? It's magic.
It's with this idea in mind that Sarah and I set out for Impossible Acres, a pick-your-own fruit farm. The high in Davis was over 100 once again, and I figured the more epic the situation, the tastier the fruits.
We trudged through weeds and stickers to pluck dozens of choice raspberries, wilt under the sun, seek out the plumpest white peaches from the orchard, and joyfully bake for an hour amid the smells of warm apricots and apples.
I don't know if it was the half-gallon of water we had sweated out, or simply the relief of standing back in our non-burning kitchen, but when we bit into one of our prized peaches, it was the best thing I had eaten in years.So to recap, the magic equation is:
Hell-worthy temperature+ hours of your precious time= one incredible moment
There. Now go out there and be epic.
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