Happy Inconveniences Versus The Joyless Pursuit Of Pleasure (August 24, 2003)

A few days ago my son Peter brought me Time Magazine's August 25 issue (about a blackout in the eastern states), and showed me a picture of more than three dozen stranded New Yorkers hitching a ride on a long flat-bed truck. Peter noted (I thought it was an inspired observation) that nearly every person in the photograph was smiling.

What were they smiling about - wasn't the blackout supposed to be a miserable inconvenience for everybody? Sure it was. But somehow even in the midst of that un-air-conditioned traffic nightmare these people found an occasion for joy. (Peter thought it had something to do with their not watching TV) I remembered something my mother used to say about working in a sweatshop for 40 cents an hour during WWII. She said there was a group of black ladies, segregated from the other employees, who were made to work in the hottest part of the factory. What amazed my mother was that these women were so happy - they laughed all day long as they enjoyed one another's company.

By contrast I think of something my brother Dave once told me about his experience aboard a riverboat casino. "Those are joyless places," he said. Rows and rows of slot machines reflected the grim faces of men and women giving away quarters like they were pieces of their souls. Snap a hundred photographs in such a place and see if even one shows as much happiness as that of stranded New Yorkers sharing a ride.

Genuine fun is nearly always a by-product of community. Though we tend to seek fun in a place (a casino or an amusement park) or before a screen (a movie or video game), it is much more likely that fun will find us if we give it a chance to materialize by spending some time together.