Reframing it

"These days we create for ourselves an absurd panoply of 'likes and dislikes' and call it freedom. It's a commodification of the notion of free will. Instead of behaving as free people and instead of feeling truly alive, we reduce existence to a list of products: 'Likes: Red Bull, VW, The Simpsons, Apple Mac, Arcade Fire. Dislikes: Robinson's Barley Water, Toyota, Ugly Betty, PCs, Metallica.'.... So says the Third Patriarch of Zen: 'To set up what you like against what you dislike - This is the disease of the mind.'"

Tom Hodgkinson - The Idle Parent

"Who is happy? He who is satisfied with his lot."

Pirkei Avot, 4:1

I had a couple of very interesting conversations recently, with Adrian Hon and Yoz Grahame about 'preferences' and the tyranny thereof. Now, before I start I should say: if you are the kind of person whose tendency is to squash down your own real preferences to the point that you can forget what they are and live only to make other people happy... the following thoughts probably do not apply to you. And if, like me, you have that tendency in some areas, or in relation to some people, it doesn't apply in those areas.

Having said that. It has been occurring to me since I started this project that much of what makes us happy on a day-to-day basis is the way we frame the experiences we're having. And that a lot of that framing has to do with 'preferences'. And that those preferences are sometimes - not always - synthetic.

To explain: over the past 28 days I have been to some great places and some not-so-great ones. However, I have on some level enjoyed even the not-so-great experiences because I knew they were part of fulfilling my larger goal: this little project. Even at the crappy Warrington, or on my migraineous days, I've enjoyed thinking about how I'll compose a blog post about them.

This is not how I'd usually operate. Usually I'd go "ugh, this is a horrible restaurant, I'm not enjoying this at all!" When I'm not embarking on a see-new-things project, I feel in a sense obliged to decide that I'm not enjoying a bad restaurant. Because I know the difference between a good restaurant and a lousy one, and part of the consequence of knowing that is to be dissatisfied with a bad restaurant.

And thinking about that, I suddenly thought: *the consequence of being more discerning is to have more occasions on which one is dissatisfied*. This was a bit startling for me. Usually I admire discernment. I think there's something admirable about being the kind of person who can tell the difference between a £5 bottle of wine and a £50 bottle, and who prefers the £50 bottle. (I can't tell the difference at all...) We do this in loads of areas I think: there's a skill of 'choosing good stuff', and that's supposed to be an admirable quality. But actually... it just gives you more occasions to feel annoyed that whatever you're experiencing hasn't come up to snuff!

Now, this thought comes with lots of caveats. One is: maybe *true* discernment is being able to pick up a £5 bottle of wine at some out-of-the-way place which tastes as good as the £50 bottles. So it's not necessarily about money, although it's still about 'taking the trouble'. But even so... if one is as satisfied drinking the supermarket plonk as one would be with the taste of the more hard-to-get stuff, is that something to be ashamed of, or to rejoice in?

And clearly if one is a skilled professional, part of that skill is to know when to be dissatisfied with badly-made work, and when to feel that the work is well-made.

This thought applies really to cases where one's sense of 'discernment' is causing needless unhappiness. I think it applies to me where I notice that *actually*, the experience I'm having/pub I'm sitting in/wine I'm drinking is perfectly pleasant, but because I know that 'better' ones (or ones I've been taught to consider 'better') are out there, I feel dissatisfied with it. Another way to say this is: maybe I actually don't have as many preferences as I think I do. Maybe it is OK frequently not to have a particular preference.

This chain of thought arrived in my mind as I was sitting in the bar of the Hendon Hall Hotel today. It's a nice little hotel, in a really weird location. This is the car park:

Not too promising.... But wait, here's the hotel:

They are right next to each other, a curious juxtaposition:

I went inside, paid £3.50 for a cup of tea, and sat in the library, which I was willing to like until I noticed...

All those books? They're fake.

Fake books are something that hurt me on several levels. I want to pick one off the shelf, but I can't. I am annoyed that the work of writers is being taken advantage of by an establishment that wants an aura of literariness without actually choosing (and paying for) works by actual writers for their shelves. And there's a third thing, an aesthetic sense, a sense of cheapness, of stupidity, of almost cargo-cultishness. Like, 'if we put these things that look like books here, we will become more intellectual." So I was suddenly extremely dissatisfied with my experience.

But honestly, who was my dissatisfaction hurting other than me? I moved room. I went to sit in a dining room with a view of their attractive garden. I spent two very pleasant hours writing and reading at a table in a silent room for only the price of a cup of tea. The fact that there were fake books next door didn't stop me enjoying a real one.

My conclusion is that sometimes we can hold on too tightly to our aesthetic sensibilities. That sometimes it's a good idea just to choose to be satisfied with where you are and what's in front of you. Sometimes it's all about how you frame it.

A Perfectly Normal Day

After all the travel and internal drama of the past few days, today I did something Perfectly Normal. But yet another one of those things that I never do. I went to a pub, with my friend Dena. We thought of going to a cool pub, or a gastropub, or a fancy award-winning pub. But all those places are hard to park at, and far away, and would have involved a lot of planning. So instead we went to a Perfectly Normal local pub: The Mill in Mill Hill, about eight minutes' drive from my house.

The reviews of the pub are hilarious. Two stars, they say. Generic, they say. No "creativity or individuality", they say. But some days generic really is just what you want. Not everything has to be exceptional or exciting. I don't necessarily want to be challenged or stimulated every time I go for a drink, I just want a nice quiet place with comfy sofas and maybe a good garden. The garden is good. It was a warm sunny afternoon with a nice breeze. Just... a normal level of enjoyment.

I've never really felt comfortable in pubs. Culturally, 'going out for a drink' isn't a very Jewish thing - we go out for dinner instead. My parents never went out to pubs, when I went out with my Jewish friends at school and even university we rarely went to pubs. I remember some non-Jewish friends at uni trying to explain to me the difference between 'a good pub' and 'a dodgy pub'. Apparently the trick is to look for well-maintained hanging baskets?

But I felt perfectly comfortable today. We got a drink and a packet of crisps. We chatted. There was no meal to get through or waiter's eye to catch or dessert menu to be tempted by. They've even just put wifi in. Hmm. Pubs. I begin to understand the attraction of the perfectly normal.

A travelling day

Spent most of today in a car on the way from Seaham back to London but... managed to stop off at The Blake Head, a very gorgeous vegetarian cafe/bookshop in York on the way home. Their risotto cakes are excellent, the cafe is very sunny and clearly popular. Here's my mum going in:

If I hadn't been travelling for nine hours today, I'd try to write something fascinating, reflecting on the meaning of a project that makes me seek out newness.

It might be about the uses of the old and the new. How new things are exciting but old things are comforting. New things offer the promise of improvement, but sometimes we only know how much we'll miss the old things when they're gone. How having too many new things leaves us exhausted and overstimulated, while having too many old things leaves us dull and bored and grey. How sometimes I feel impatient that the future I hoped for hasn't yet arrived, and sometimes I feel appalled at how much has already been lost from the past. I might talk about how difficult it is to achieve balance in life, finding room for both old things and new things.

But, I'm tired. So instead, here is an advert from a magazine directed at Very Orthodox Jews in northwest London. I promise it's genuine.

Edit, Thursday 27 August 11.23pm

Because a couple of people have now said to me "eh? Krefttik? I don't get it!" I feel I ought to explain what was so obviously hilarious to me about this ad. 1) Who on earth calls a food product Krefttik? It sounds like something you should be using to regrout your bathroom. 2) *What is it*? We know what it's not! But... so many options are left. I think it is a fish omelette. Any other ideas? Google is of no help in the Krefttik Quest. Clearly I have to go to Kol Tuv and find some.

Almost forgot

But my mum reminded me. This was a lovely hopeful sign at the beach, faint but visible. Better tomorrows, even if you had a good today :-).

Tired and emotional

I find it hard to throw things out. Other people love it - they gaily chuck stuff into the bin and then revel in all the beautiful space around them. Me, I find it hard. I don't mean like, throwing out crisp packets. But things that have meant something to me. Or might have meant something to me. Or if I can't really remember whether they meant something to me or not, but who knows, maybe they did! Anyway, today has been a throwing-out day, so it's been hard. I did go to a new place - it was the new promenade and bay at Seaham Harbour. Here is the bay in the evening:

But because I'm really a bit too tired and emotional to write much more, here instead are some images from late-80s copies of Just 17 and Smash Hits. Michael Jackson, Christian Bale and Philip Schofield, as they used to be.