Meta-martini
Recently online, someone criticized the Fauci pardon by saying he’d now be sitting on a beach sipping martinis.
It’s an idyllic scene. Who wouldn’t want to be sitting on a warm beach sipping a martini?
Picture yourself now sitting on a beach with whatever drink you like. How good is it? Now add in that you are there alone, all your current tasks are still undone, and that you have to get back to work tomorrow.
Are you still in paradise?
I recall a hard time in my life when I kept myself going by picturing the long holiday I’d have at the end of it. I imagined going to my favourite pub, sitting at the bar, and having that first drink. The taste of beer would signal that all my troubles and struggles were officially over.
When I actually made it to the bar, the beer was mediocre and I found the company dull because I wasn’t drunk enough.
Weirdly, the terrible experiences I had in the lead-up now give me more happiness (or something like that we don’t have a good word for) because they’ve made me much tougher than I used to be, and given me dozens of great stories plus all sorts of bragging rights. It’s like being a veteran without having seen my mates get blown up.
Roissy once posted that he’d attended a wild party and literally snorted cocaine off a whore’s naked buttocks. He reported that this cliched fantasy was actually not that good. He described the experience as ‘meta,’ like he was outside himself looking at himself having this experience, not really in the experience himself.
When I was more hedonistic than I am now, I often had that feeling (though not in Roissy’s particular situation). I could sometimes get lost in a moment, but often I was thinking ‘I should be enjoying this more.’
A fun experience can be too contrived, especially if you overthink it. Some people save up all year for an expensive holiday and then enjoy the hell out of it. If I did that, I would have trouble enjoying it because of the pressure to enjoy it. That sort of situation feels fake to me. I could never get into rock concerts for the same reason.
I think there are two genuine types of joy which can fit under the ‘hedonistic’ umbrella (of course, there are many other joys besides).
The first type is the joy of the everyday, the comfort of routine: one’s morning coffee, a cold shower after a run, going to bed tired and sleepy.
The second type of true hedonistic joy is the small, unexpected moments that you don’t even think about until after they’ve happened. Watching a dog being silly. Finding money behind the couch.
Even in these cases, joy flees when I start thinking, ‘this is good’.
Such joys feel empty in retrospect if there was no one there to share them, or if there was nothing deeper or more profound.
We say ‘sitting on a beach sipping martinis’ as a shorthand for ‘enjoying life,’ but if that is literally what Fauci is doing right now, he’s probably not that happy unless he’s very shallow indeed, which he may be.
To take the Fauci case as an example, true happiness for a wise man in a position like his would be sitting on a beach or anywhere else, perhaps with loved ones (a dog will do), looking back at a career where he made a positive impact on the world. Thinking about his next project, whether it be suggestions for future research or building a sunroom for when his grandkids visit. Feeling grateful for all that he has, whatever he has. Being spiritually content.
I have relatives who lived in a cramped shed for a year while they built their house on a bush block. They often mention that it was the year they remember most fondly.