February 28, 2002

• A Finite Number Of Infinite Possibilities
  
  There’s a trend happening here on Xanga, with lists of 101 things. Some folks have started lists of simple pleasures.
  
  I dig simple pleasures, perhaps in a way that keeps me from digging things that are larger and more profound. Such is the situation with the obsessive and autistic.
  
  For instance, if you give me a warm croissant and a double tall soy latte, you have equipped me with two very pleasurable simple pleasures. But I tend to get trapped in a desire to constantly have croissants and lattes, making the experience neither simple nor pleasurable.
  
  I also like to go to used book stores. But I go all the time. Back when my van was running, I’d end up at a given bookstore two or three times a week, and that’s just one of the handful I frequent. I rarely buy anything, and I already know what’s there, but it’s a ritual, and as such ceases to be a simple pleasure.
  
  I know, I know. I’m the guy who shits on hope and sees the bad side to simple pleasures for chrissake! But it’s not simple pleasures that I see a bad side of; it’s just me trying to understand my own nature. I could list a zillion things that make me happy, but then I’d go and make rituals about them. I run this risk in all aspects of my life.
  
  Thankfully, being obsessive in this way is a bonus to a computer programmer, so I can do that work and give Obsessive Codehead Homer something to do while the rest of me engages in hedonism. It’s still an effort, though, to keep it compartmentalized, and I’m not sure how successful I’ve been.
  
  Anyway, with that in mind, I’ll list some simple pleasures. They’re general to a fault, probably rather unique to me, and maybe not even all that simple. But why make a list otherwise?
  
  Defecation. I’m fascinated by the whole process. Part body-awareness, part breaking of social taboo, part wonderment at the complexity of the human biomachine, part meditation on everything you’ve eaten in the past few days. And a good time to finish a crossword.
  
  Bathing. Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap, hot shower, natural sponge.
  
  Walking. Walking is the essential human endeavor. We evolved to be able to walk. I was talking to someone who said that humans were unique among animals because their upright spine aligned the chakras in a vertical line, connecting heaven to earth. No more knuckle-dragging after that, eh? Walk amongst your neighbors and learn what’s going on.
  
  Arguing. I can’t make an argument in real-time; I’m too easily flustered by any social situation. But usenet lets me put my peacock’s-tail of rhetorical ability on display. Not that it’s all that good a place for me to focus those energies, but it’s certainly a pleasure, and most other participants are simple, so I guess it qualifies as a simple pleasure.
  
  Alone. This is different from loneliness. Alone-ness is when you don’t want or need to be around other people. I’m thinking specifically of the last time I was driving alone up the northern California coastline. I stopped at a public campground on whichever river 101 goes next to at that point, and piled rocks in a streambed, making statues and monuments to nothing in particular. Some were exquisitely beautiful. I had the whole place to myself; there wasn’t even any traffic on the highway.
  
  Connections. The almost invisible. The things that most people ignore because they’re too busy carrying an agenda around. Like when I was driving up the California coast, my alone-ness experience was facilitated by everyone who made the road, everyone who made my van, everyone who made the gas I was burning, everyone who made the campground, and everyone who was driving somewhere besides highway 101. So I wasn’t, strictly speaking, alone, exactly. To me, that sense is a simple pleasure, and one not to be taken for granted.
  

  • 8:47 pm
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