On relaxation
The Weekly Wrap Up (1/22/21)
Each week, I’m going to be sharing some things I’ve learned from stuff I’ve read. Topics may range from philosophy to sports and anywhere in between.
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Imagine this. You’ve wrapped up a long day at work at a job you don’t particularly like, working with people you like less, and commuting a distance that you might like the least.
But now it’s 7 pm, and thank God, you’re home because your mind’s a mess, and there’s nothing that’ll fix your state of mind, other than escaping into the world of a damn good TV show.
A relaxing TV show, of course.
You decide to pull up the show Jake, and it’s about this guy (wait for it) Jake who’s in his early 30s and crushing it. He’s making 500k per year from a business that’s now on auto-pilot, and he’s married to Lacy, a gorgeous woman who’s kind, witty, and happens to be a recipient of both a Nobel and a Macarthur Genius Grant.
Episodes on Jake revolve around his day to day which purely consists of him and Lacy traveling around the world on their private jet.
Occasionally, there are surprises on the show. In one episode, Jake receives a $100,000 check in the mail and the rest of the episode revolves around Jake trying to figure out where in the world the check could have come from.
Eventually, Jake remembers that he owns a rental property in the Hamptons and that the tenant insisted on paying the year’s rent in one lump-sum. Given the tax implications of a lump-sum payment, Jake becomes understandably frustrated and decides to give his tenants a stern talking to, which he does in the next episode.
Does Jake sound familiar at all to you? I’m guessing not.
Even though human beings love to relax, that’s the last thing we want to see in a story that we’re following. Even though we want the life in Jake, we’ll fall asleep within two minutes of watching any show like it.
Ironically enough, when we want to relax, we desire to view other people’s traumas.
Some of humanity’s worst experiences exist in the shows that we watch. Game of Thrones, the most widely watched TV series in recent years, is filled with murder, rape, and penis-chopping.
Take even lighthearted shows like Schitt’s Creek. The family in the show is destitute and miserable from living in a town that they despise. Sure, there are laughs and what not, but that doesn’t change how the story is rooted in the problems of the characters, rather than their happiness.
Our obsession with trauma is so absolute that it leaks into our very subconscious when we sleep. Rarely, do our dreams look like Jake. The fact that so many dreams are filled with a desire to wake up and escape probably speaks to the dark and grim stories that our sleeping brains are conjuring.
Certainly, our obsession with other people’s traumas and problems isn’t something to be proud of. But it’s also a truth about our humanity that we just can’t simply brush aside.
So, what is it with our aversion to personal trauma but our enjoyment of viewing it as an outsider?
Jonathan Gottschall talks about this paradox extensively in The Storytelling Animal. I’ll talk more about this in next week’s newsletter.
Assorted Links
You want to be in a very tall building during an earthquake.
Video of dolphins and Brazilian fishermen working together to catch fish.