Small Pleasures

by The School Of Life

  You notice the moon: a lemon-slice shape, silvery-grey, partly obscured by cloud. The sun is shining up there. It looks like an interesting place. You sympathise for a moment with the vast majority of those who have ever lived who imagined the moon inhabited – usually by beings cleverer and kinder than us; such a pity it turned out to be just a lump of rock and dust. It doesn’t look all that far away; it’s not surprising people thought they could touch it from the top of a tower just a little higher than any they managed to construct.

  Things often look nicer at night; irksome details are lost in the shadows. A few lights are on behind curtains and blinds. Occasionally you see into a room on an upper storey: the top of a bookcase, a corner of kitchen ceiling. A cat observes you from the top of a wall. You turn slightly at random down one street then another; it doesn’t matter very much where you go.

  The pleasure of a midnight walk is often to do with the opportunity it provides for thinking. The late hour, the gentle motion of the body, the well-known yet newly strange streets, our own inner restlessness and the fact of being alone and not having anywhere in particular to get to (except, eventually, home) combine to create a sympathetic environment for the strange operation of the brain we call ‘thinking’.

  ‘Thinking’ sounds so familiar: in some way or another our brains are active the whole time; but in its more ambitious sense, thinking is the process by which we address and make progress towards resolving a matter which is both important and confusing. Thinking involves seven key phases, and over the course of an ideal midnight walk we would be making our way through them to the accompanying rhythm of our footsteps on the dark pavement.

  One: Selection

  At any moment there could be many things that are bugging or exciting you: someone has been horrible; the tax return is looming; a news item; you drank too much on Friday and maybe were a bit of an idiot; your mother been prescribed some pills; a new friend; feeling a bit lonely; the documentary you watched earlier; a slight twinge in your left knee; a new work project; the dream you had last night … Typically, we jump around between them all. The starting point is to select just one for the midnight walk. The problem isn’t finding the right one. They are all important – and with enough walks we’ll get round to them all. The first move is just to pick one and to stick with it.

  Two: The admission of ignorance

  Strangely, a major block in thinking is the tendency to come to a conclusion too quickly. We often start out feeling we know what’s going on. Typically, one repeats an assertion in different ways. One feel things like: that person is awful; they did this thing and they also did that thing. They’re arrogant; they’re mean. They are so full of themselves. The issue is being restated again and again. But we don’t actually make progress in thinking. This is why, weirdly, it’s such a key step to recognise that often one doesn’t know, for instance, what is going on in another person’s mind, or what their motives really are, or why they behave as they do. Or when presented with a money worry, one thinks – of course it’s about money. It seems so obvious. And yet the real issue might be somewhere else (a feeling of failure, envy, the terror of being humiliated by comparison with a rival, the worry of having wasted one’s opportunities). But we can’t get to these matters if we’re initially convinced we know exactly what the trouble is about.

  The fact is, though, that we rarely see more than a few parts of what a person fully is, even though by ordinary standards we know them well. We so quickly forget everyone’s complex background. And others don’t constantly remind us of the accumulation of shame, compromise, fear and difficult experiences that have shaped them. On the surface they appear sure of themselves or aggressive or enviably fortunate; they let us down or ask too much; they don’t listen properly or they laser in on our failings in a humiliating way. Our complaints against others are endless. But at midnight, away from others (except a stray neighbour walking their dog), we can briefly get enough distance to recall the strangeness of being human. We are deeply peculiar organisms; we are mysteries to one another and to ourselves; we don’t really know why we ourselves do what we do half the time.

  Three: Sympathy for oneself

  It would be so sweet if life were trouble-free. We get bothered by the pure fact of having problems – we feel unfairly beset by them, cursed and burdened. Why do these things come my way? In order to understand our problems we have to recognise them as legitimate and, in broad outline, normal.

  Life is essentially quite difficult. It’s acceptable to have this problem (even if it seems like it’s a tiny thing that’s on your mind: the electricity bill was larger than I was expecting; I found some more grey hairs; I bought a chair and actually I don’t really like it; I said I was going to have to do some extra work on Saturday and my partner looked at me as if it was my fault). In the night it’s a little easier to keep in mind that the human condition is sombre; we are frail creatures inhabiting the outer crust of a minuscule lump of rock orbiting a very average star. It is so understandable we have troubles.

  Four: Reverie

  Ideally, ask ourselves what else comes to mind around the issue we are focusing on. The associations could seem quite odd at first. Maybe the pills make you think of a childhood holiday when your mother played in a tennis tournament and did quite well; or a story she told you about her grandmother (who died quite a number of years before you were born) falling down the stairs at her house in Sheffield and lying at the bottom for four hours before a neighbour who was coming round for lunch got worried and called the police.

  Or, the documentary about farmers in Norway and how they cope with the long winter – which was very lovely – makes you think how when you were little you loved a book about two children who went round the world on a magic carpet, stopping for minute or two in lots of countries – and you used to wonder, where will I live? You didn’t think you’d end up near Manchester. And it also brings to mind a holiday in Turkey years back (when you thought you might marry your ex) and, bizarrely, something your hairdresser said about liking getting postcards from her clients when they are away.

  We’re not initially asking for it all to make sense. What we’re doing is building up a sense of what this starting point means to us. We’re mapping the surrounding emotional terrain. It can seem counter-intuitive. Aren’t we meant to be solving a problem, while this just seems to be making everything more murky? The deeper fact, though, is that it is out of this material that we’ll grasp what’s really getting to us.

  Five: Defining the need

  As we approach the railway bridge or the shuttered corner shop, we get onto the next phase: so what is it that’s really at stake here? The pills might not mean so much; I’m worried about my mother’s health (though that’s the case) but I feel I haven’t come to know her fully and time could be running out. The documentary might have touched me not because I’m especially interested in Norway but because I’ve always wanted to live by the sea and I wonder what it means if I never do?

  Around finances, the key thing might not be this specific squeeze but the fact that I seem to get myself into these situations. Around an annoying partner, the move might be from why are they so touchy to: so why am I really with them? – as an open question, seeking possibly a good, positive answer.

  Definition means getting to a question that you can do something about. So often our minds are taken up with assertions: it’s grim; she’s down on me; he’s a creep. But it’s really only questions that we can address and ultimately do anything about.

  Six: Practical focus

  What should I do? I can stick with things as they are, I can maybe abandon the whole issue (leave, quit, resign) or I can try to make some adjustment in myself to improve the situation. I can’t pin any hopes on others changing. That would be nice, but it’s not directly in my power to bring that about.

  Seven: Perspective

  Life is short; the universe is big; one occupies for a moment (really) a tiny portion of existence. Usua
lly we like the idea of being noticed and of feeling important. But at other points it is sweet to feel that maybe our actions don’t matter – they will be lost in the greater tides of human existence, and all our follies and errors will melt away very soon, as if they had never been. We are off the hook. The night helps this thought come forward. Somewhere across the globe where it is day, people are grabbing lunch or leading their cattle to the waterhole. They know nothing of us and our troubles. Not out of callousness, but because, really, our problems are quite small. Galaxies are very slowly exploding; there are stars being born in labours of tens of millions of years; others are in their billion-year-long death throes. And all it will mean, at most, on earth, is the tiniest fluctuation in the tiniest flicker of light in a minute portion of the night sky. Yet, at the same time, we’re not nothing. We are truly marvellous organisations of sensitivity, thought, feeling and longing.

  It really is late now. Returning home, you finger the door key – a little calmer, a little more resolute; you yawn at the last corner; at last you’re not simply tired, you’re beginning to feel sleepy. It’s nice to think you’ll soon be going to bed. Soon thought will cease; consciousness will be suspended; the sources of energy will be renewed. It is already the very beginning of tomorrow.

  48

  Flirtation

  There’s a person at another firm you quite often have to speak to on the phone – mostly about recurrent issues with a licensing agreement. You’ve never actually met them (you’re in different parts of the world), though their profile photo is intriguing: a crisp shirt, nice glasses – but you know you can’t necessarily tell very much from that. It’s always fun chatting with them – you like their voice; when there’s a problem they spin out a sympathetic phrase ‘oh … I know ... I know’ – you’re really only lamenting an ambiguity in the clauses about merchandising rights, but their tone suggests other possible occasions when they might say that in the same way: if you told them about feeling lonely at the sales conference in Antwerp or the way Bach’s cantata ‘Bist du bei mir’ sometimes makes you want to cry. They’re not saying anything intimate outright, they are just hinting. They are creating a suggestive atmosphere that invites you to join in. You might exaggerate your excitement around banal things … ‘it’s so lovely of you to … have a senior partner clarify the corporate advertising strategy’: the way you say it – stressing ‘lovely’ – implies something bigger: you are lovely. They sign off in a sweet way: ‘till soon’. Which conjures up a double-cheek kiss, a sympathetic glance into your eyes and a pat on your arm. It’s a charming little flirtatious moment in the middle of a tricky afternoon.

  You might find yourself flirting at a party, when you meet up with an old friend, when you have tea with a lovely elderly neighbour, across the boardroom table, with a colleague at work or even with your partner. It’s possible to take a negative view of flirting – most often when someone we like flirts with someone other than us. But that’s because flirting is understood only in a very narrow way: as an early step in a mating ritual that tests the waters for sex.

  But the pleasure of flirting is not primarily erotic. It’s more aligned with friendship. And its core impulse is generosity. Essentially, when we flirt we are showing another person that we like them and find them attractive. When people are good at flirting it’s clear that they are many steps away from a suggestion of hopping into bed – though there might be a hint that it would be nice to stroke this person’s hair, or cuddle them or whisper to them in the dark. But these are pleasures of affection and it’s unfortunate if we categorise them mainly as foreplay.

  Some people could do with toning down their self-esteem, but usually we’re not at all given to overestimating how much other people might be interested in us (the problem typically runs the other way, we find it increasingly difficult to imagine being the object of desire for anyone); we don’t need to follow through with this person – the benefit is a needed boost to one’s self-perception. And we love it when another person indicates that they think we are just a little bit lovely. We usually need plenty of reminders of this.

  One of the nice things about flirting is that it is highly flexible. People can flirt across gulfs of political belief, of social, economic or marital status, of sexual inclination and (with obvious caveats) of age: the 26-year-old corporate lawyer and the 52-year-old man behind the counter of the corner shop can flirt; so can the cleaner and the CEO. And it’s moving when they do because they are demonstrating how kindness and interest and a touch of mutual attraction can overcome distance.

  Because flirting is non-committal, it can look as if it is insincere. Isn’t the flirt only pretending? This is an attitude fostered by a Romantic ideal of total coherence: either we are completely sincere and speak straight from the heart or we are, in effect, liars. So, in some of the great Romantic novels of the nineteenth century, ‘flirt’ is a term of abuse; the brooding hero would be applauded for renouncing his fiancée (and retiring, in disgust at the world, to a partially ruined castle in the Highlands) if she flirted with another man; and no fine heroine would ever adopt a playful, semi-erotic tone with anyone except her single true love. But they missed something important.

  The ideal flirtation is a small work of social art co-created by two people; it is civilised artifice. It acknowledges limitations; it is worried about consequences; it knows you shouldn’t let a momentary impulse damage a longstanding relationship. So it invents a safe version of seduction. It constitutes a wise accommodation with reality, while working out how to have the nicest time with another person. We should flirt more.

  49

  The First Day of Feeling Well Again

  It wasn’t, hopefully, too serious, just enough to keep you in bed, and feeling a bit miserable, for three or four days: you got a flu virus, you had an unusually heavy cold or a bout of tonsillitis.

  Being unwell – obviously – is far from desirable. But all the same it had certain compensations. You had a bowl of lentil soup – hot and bland, you sensed its worthy goodness seeping into you: calming and nutritious. Someone brought you a cup of weak tea and this little act of kindness really touched you. A crunchy, bland slice of dry toast – which normally you’d never consider eating – was very appealing.

  While you were feeling poorly, certain themes of your life took a back seat. It didn’t seem to matter so much what was happening at work. You didn’t have the energy to get roused by the little things that so often irritate you. You took a break from scanning the news. You didn’t feel obliged to respond to texts and emails. Your sexual appetites were in recession and stopped occupying your mind. You felt oddly calm. And that tranquillity lingers as you start to feel better.

  You slept well last night. Your body is newly functional. Things you’d never normally even notice are sources of positive pleasure. Being able to breathe easily is interesting: how nice to feel the air drawing through the paranasal sinuses; it’s lovely to be able to swallow without wincing. You can focus on the back of your head – there’s not a trace of the throb that’s been your companion for the last 48 hours. Your eyes feel energetic. Your brain is coming alive. Feeling hungry is really very nice. The mere act of standing up (without feeling dizzy or weak) is a pleasure in itself. It’s rather fascinating to put on proper clothes, and going outside seems, briefly, like a treat.

  As we re-emerge into the world, we are remaking acquaintance with things that had been taken for granted but now seem fascinating. You haven’t used a house key for a few days and you see it anew as a beautifully intricate machine that by a process you almost (but don’t quite) understand can manoeuvre the small tongue of steel that is the only real barrier between your private domestic civilisation and the barbarian world into its snug little slot. You turn the key this way and that in the lock for the sheer pleasure of hearing the decisive click of closure alternate with the flat thud of release. A shoelace seems astonishing: how odd that we tie ourselves into our shoes with little bits of string and t
hat our culture has very strict ideas about what the knot should be like – theoretically you could knot the ends together 50 times into a large ball and it’s curiously tempting to give it a go. One is returned to the condition of a child who has just mastered the art of doing up a zip and for whom zips are still (what they always really are) wondrous little pieces of portable engineering generously sewn into one’s clothes for entertainment value.

  We’re not literally required to be ill to have these pleasures. Potentially we could discover them by the pure exercise of imagination – but mostly we have to wait for the special prompt of a few days lying in bed.

  50

  Daisies

  They’re so small: you have to lie down to see them properly in their native state, scattered in small groups or sprouting in isolation in the unmowed grass. They start showing themselves in April and can still be around in October. Bellis perennis – the common daisy – can live from year to year (even if a rotor blade does regularly decapitate it), so long as its roots can extract enough moisture from the soil; none, however, are known for certain to have survived more than 20 years, but this may reflect our limited curiosity rather than indicate the natural horizon of their being.

  At the height of their flourishing, they may only stand five centimetres tall. The conjunction of the golden yellow of the cluster of tiny heads at the centre and the fringe of just off-white petals is one of nature’s most charming colour arrangements: it might make one think for a moment of a fried egg or of the interior of a Russian palace from the time of Catherine the Great.

  The primary use humanity has discovered, so far, for this particular flower is the daisy chain. Making daisy chains – you use a thumbnail to make a slit low down on the stem and thread another one through – sounds fiddly, but turns out to be very easy.