[excerpted from Endangered Pleasures by Barbara Holland]
"Subtly,
in little ways, joy has been leaking out of our lives. Almost
without a struggle, we have let the New Puritans take over, spreading
a layer of foreboding across the land until even ignorant small
children rarely laugh anymore. Pain has become nobler than pleasure;
work, however foolish or futile, nobler than play; and denying
ourselves even the most harmless delights marks the suitably somber
outlook on life.
"It's
an easy trap to fall into. Somehow bad news is easier to believe,
more important, than good. Joyful people singing of blue skies
always sound slightly simple-minded; the prophets of doom sound so
much better educated, so much more likely to be right, and when they
threaten us with cancer, global warming, gridlock, AIDS, war,
famine, and pestilence, we listen closely and believe. The small
pleasures of the ordinary day come to seem almost contemptible, and
glance off us lightly. By bedtime they've vanished, lost among the
ominous headlines, rude taxi drivers, and tight shoes looming in
memory.
"Part
of this is genetic programming. Back in the dawn of things, those
who dawdled on the path smelling the flowers and smiling at the
sunshine didn't last long enough to hand down their genes. The genes
that traveled farthest were those of the most pessimistic, the most
resistant to pleasures, the most alert to flies in their soup, tigers
on the trail. They invented the angriest gods and prepared for the
most menacing neighbors. Gloomy and suspicious, they slept with one
eye open.
"We
are their heirs. Scientific tests are proving that we notice and
remember dark words more sharply than bright ones. They weigh more
in our minds, as tigers weighed more than flowers.
"We
may be overdoing it. Certainly we suffer more from stress, high
blood pressure, insomnia, indigestion, and dark premonitions than
other animals whose lives are more perilous than ours. It may not
even be a sign of high intelligence; the clever dolphin, in spite of
tuna nets, seems to celebrate all day long.
….
"Now we're left to wring joy from the absence of joy, from
denial, from counting grams of fat, jogging, drinking only bottled
water and eating only broccoli. The rest of the time we work. A
recent study informs us that Americans in 1994 worked 158 hours (roughly a month) longer than we did in 1974.
"Our
only permissible enjoyments now are public, official, and
commercially regulated, as in Disney World, casinos, shopping,
television, organized sport, and rock concerts. As long as somebody
somewhere is making money out of us, we're useful to the economy,
even patriotic: we're allowed to pay admission and play in the theme
park.
"To
make sure we aren't having any casual, private fun, the contemporary
wisdom has withdrawn a lot of our older pleasures – chicken gravy,
long summer vacations, sleeping late – and
has replaced them with fitness and gloom.
…
"Perhaps
it's a good time to reconsider pleasure at its roots. Changing out
of wet shoes and socks, for instance. Bathrobes. Yawning and
stretching. Real tomatoes. The magic day in January when it's
clearly, plainly, joyfully no longer quite dark at five in the
afternoon. Waking up in the morning and then going back to sleep
again. The cold and limey rattle of a vodka-tonic being walked
across the lawn. Finishing our tax returns. The smells of the
morning paper, cut grass, and old leather jackets. Finding a taxi in
a downpour; clean sheets; singing to ourselves in the car. Sitting
by the fire picking sticktights off the dog. All the available
gentle nourishments of the ordinary day. Properly respected, maybe
they can lighten our anxious load.
"Indeed,
pleasure may be almost as good for our health as broccoli; chemists
tell us that happy people produce endorphins and enkephalins, brain
chemicals that improve T-cell production and thus enhance immunity to
cancer, heart disease, and infections.
"Let
us then strive to be merry. Gloom we always have with us, a rank and
sturdy weed, but joy requires tending. Pleasure itself is
endangered."
[excerpted from Endangered Pleasures by Barbara Holland]
