A rare and welcome pleasure

The social nature of humans means, among many other things, actions and events do not only get judged from the point of view of the individuals, but also by the rest of society at large. However, this judgement is only relevant for public actions or, at most, for private actions with a public repercussion, but certainly not for fully private ones and much less for our thoughts. The boundary of what has a public repercussion can vary from one culture to the next, but the rule is of general application. In fact, in most societies the applicable god or gods are there to ensure that the right to privacy is not abused to wildly breach the limits of propriety. And, to some extent, it is important for the order in the society that all members share a common understanding of what is and what is not acceptable, because it helps the cohesion.

Still, we are humans in the end and we all occasionally fall short of the social expectations and our own. In these moments of distress it is socially acceptable to turn to a person of our confidence to seek their forgiveness and, vicariously, that of the society as a whole. Criminal behaviors are mostly settled in the judiciary system, but for minor violations, which break the social norm but not the law strictly speaking, this consultation is, at the same time, consolation and advice: it acknowledges the human impossibility to avoid all mistakes, while at the same time counseling as to how to prevent the mishap in the future.

Photo: Pezibear from Pixabay

The mirror situation, where we fulfill or even exceed everyone's expectations, is usually a source of joy and a reason to celebrate. In a similar behavior, consulting with our friends will allow us to confirm the success and possibly analyze the strong points of our actions so that we can repeat the feat in the future. Traditionally, the extend of these celebrations has been limited in scope and proportional to the achievement, but social media has completely changed the panorama.

While there is a lot of potential for empathy and mutual help on the internet, it is also clear that most cybernauts surf the web to feel good themselves, not to help others to feel good. This means that posting on Facebook about the sickness of your cat might elicit a number of quick good wishes, but unboxing a new smartphone is bound to grab much more attention and get you a tonne of likes. This results in a self-censoring attitude where, when Facebook asks you "What is on your mind?" if your answer is "I have to go to the dentist" you just do not post it, whereas if your answer is "I am going to Cancun on Saturday" you simply jump at it and share your anticipation with everyone. By pure statistics, this means that 19 out of 20 days (your mileage may vary) you do not have anything interesting to post but, if we assume you have 100 friends, you will see, on average, five amazing things that one of them has done. And when this situation repeats itself every day without a note of how unusual these extraordinary situations are en each individual life it is almost unavoidable to feel inadequate and that everyone else's life is much more interesting than yours.

Today I come before you to share a rare and welcome pleasure that I happened to enjoy on Saturday afternoon. We were clearing the table after having coffee when Karen's phone rang. By her tone I recognized that it was Ming, one of her friends who is under a lot of emotional stress these weeks between her ex-husband fighting over custody of their child and her new boyfriend being less attentive than she would have anticipated. Seeing that the weather was balmy outside, I finished clearing the cups and went outside to read to give her room to talk calmly with her friend. Our front porch is (thanks to years of hard work on the hedge) hidden for the eyes of the passers-by and was bathed at the time in warm sunlight, so I decided to sit there to catch up on my vitamin D which has been seriously neglected over the winter.

I had barely read three or four pages when I saw Ming walking in. She lives only a few blocks away, so that was not all that surprising, just a bit unexpected because Karen had not told me that she was coming. I escorted Ming into the house, they settled down to have tea together and I felt that this was going to be heart-to-heart conversation so, not wanting to intrude, I grabbed a bottle of water returned to my reading post. Almost three hours went by in a breeze before I finished my book and I can only say that it was a delightful moment: everyone in the house was fed and entertained and I was, for once, off the hook for a few hours. Knowing that it was entirely up to me whether to continue reading or giving up, that I was (most likely) not going to be called to help with some math assignment or to put some stuff on the top shelf was a superb moment of relax and enjoyment. And a rare one too, because Karen, being an ardent feminist as she is, does everything in her power to prevent me from slacking in the never-ending job of running the house.

Once Ming and Karen were done with their conversation and we were all by ourselves I talked to Karen to express my hope that "giving them space" had been the right call. I have to admit that the move was slightly manipulative because it was partially for their comfort but I would also have felt a bit awkward in the middle of such a conversation. Still, she took the bait and thanked me for my "insightfulness" and I got to enjoy the time on my own and get the gratitude of my wife and her friend. My penance now for the guilty pleasure is that I will have to find a new book to read. Do you find unexpected moments of delight yourself? I hope you have a nice week.