Independence
Day has just passed. For many Americans, it is nearly a religious experience.
But what is the American religion?
The
American religion, which conservatives conflate with Christianity, is that we
deserve to have instant access to every pleasure, regardless of the effects our
pleasures have on other people. This is in complete contrast with Buddhism and
also with Jesus, who told us to take no thought for the morrow, of what we
should eat or drink or wear. And our economy depends on stoking our desires for
instant gratification. If people started acting like Buddha or Jesus, our
economy would collapse instantly. No corporation can thrive by pandering to the
pleasures of people who do not feel the need to seek pleasures.
I
am pretty good at not having desires and cravings for physical pleasure, at
least for those pleasures that cost money and require time. But I am not
perfect. During a recent excursion into the world of cravings, I learned a
couple of things that helped me to understand better that physical
gratification offers essentially nothing but frustration.
You
will probably think this is weird, but I really like watching Perry Mason
reruns from the 1960s. Perry Mason shows were a particular art form with a very
specific structure. Even though each episode concerns a heinous crime, the
structure of the show (the courtroom scene always begins at the half hour, for
example, and the true criminal confesses his crime about eight minutes before
the end) offers a comforting structure to the world. Everything is well, chaos
is in retreat, when Perry Mason is at work. But where can you find these reruns?
Perhaps online, if you subscribe to a download service. I do not, since I would
use it only to watch a few Perry Mason reruns every summer. Blockbuster? Forget
it. They do not even know that television existed in the 1960s. That leaves the
public library. In Tulsa, you can find Perry Mason DVDs at libraries. Well, except
that they are usually checked out by people even older than I am. It turns out
that, if you want to put a hold on one, it will take at least three weeks
before you can get it. There is no such thing as watching one of these DVDs on
a whim. Since watching videos for pleasure is not something I often do, I am
not accustomed to planning my video watching three weeks in advance. This is,
for me, a formula for frustration.
There
are three ways to avoid this frustration. One is to allow substitutibility for
pleasures. (Did I spell that right?) If you want to watch a video, you should be open to almost any video—and
they are mostly alike, and have blood and violence as their principal content.
If you desire only to see a bloody, violent video (which Perry Mason is not; if
there is blood, it does not show up well in black and white), then you can walk
into any Blockbuster and find something that will please you. The second is to
be willing to wait, which is frustrating. The third is the way that Jesus and
Buddha talked about: to simply not desire any such pleasures.
My
choice is somewhere between number 1 and number 3. I have lots of books, and
lots of CDs I bought about a decade ago. I can simply choose to enjoy what I already
have, assuming that I can convince myself to substitute one of them for Perry
Mason. I have not quite gotten to the point of desiring nothing. But I don’t
have to, so long as I can be satisfied with whatever I happen to already have
access to. And when I spend an evening with my wife, we can read stories to one
another. But I’m sure Jesus was able to enjoy some pleasures also, even if it
was only the pleasure of finding some cool fresh water in the desert.
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