You fill up my senses like a night in the forest,
like the mountains in springtime,
like a walk in the rain,
like a storm in the desert,
like a sleepy blue ocean.
You fill up my senses, come fill me again.
Come let me love you, let me give my life to you,
let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms, let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you.
Come let me love you, come love me again.
Lately I find myself embroiled in constant pleasure-seeking behaviours. I am human, so this isn’t new. What’s become a focus to me this week is that certain knowledge that my phone is a pleasure machine, an addictive and frustrating access point to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is the internet.
I play a farming and production game called Township. I’ve been playing it for months, at least half an hour a day… I’ve played Minecraft and Stardew Valley before as well. I get on a kick lasting for months that inevitably ends in the disillusioned displeasure of productivity for productivity’s sake. Or at least that’s what I initially think, but there’s a pleasure in achieving something. An easy goal that involves little real effort, that doesn’t involve seemingly impossible obstacles.
Certainly not like my real world goals. Like organizing the garage, meal planning, and connecting with friends regularly. The reward is great, but the path is narrow and rocky.
The common denominator between all these little farming and production games, indeed most phone games I’ve played in the past few years, is the ability to concretely achieve something and be rewarded for it. When I finish a building in Township, They show it as a white box wrapped in ribbon and with balloons. When I tap it, there are balloons released up and fireworks. Freaking fireworks.
How could it be possible for my real life to compete with that?
Every time that I say I’m going to walk away
You turn me on like a light switch…
You know how to just make me want you
There are very few obstacles between the goal and the ability to achieve it, which is key. The dopamine hit it’s possible to get by growing fake wheat is a very strange thing. In each of these games, I find myself in an obsessive spiral. Even in Stardew Valley, which is supposed to be relaxing… I become a productive machine. Even in what is supposed to be my leisure time. My brother in law even joked with me about it. I wasn’t relaxing.
I was seeking.
You drive me crazy, I just can’t sleep
I’m so excited, I’m in too deep
Oh, crazy, but it feels alright
Baby, thinking of you keeps me up all night
There’s a part of me that desperately wants to unplug from screens. The unfortunate thing is that my education and my work life are both tied to screens. The majority of my close friends are long distance. Trying to go outside of that has been difficult for me. Again, I know this is not a new or unique situation. It seems like everyone I know is struggling with it to some degree.
Recently I found myself drawn to Facebook reels and YouTube shorts. Basically diet tiktoks. They are the worst kind of pleasure. Digital crack. I find myself asking if this kind of pleasure is authentic. Of course not. However, also of course, yes it is. My mind and my body respond to it as though it is real pleasure. But I want out.
This is something
That I should know
I’ve been down here before
You can try and try another way
But you’re standing right at the door
Oh, I know that Your love is real
I can feel the light shining bright
If you want a better deal
Let the people sleep at night
Love is reality
In the same way as humanity has been able to synthesize insulin for the diabetic, we have synthetic pleasure for the mind. It is cheap. It is accessible. It is instantaneous. And as much as I would like to say it doesn’t fulfill me, I have to admit that it does, just enough to continue like an addict who needs a fix. Fixes do fill you. Like a leaky cup.
I’m searching for a song tonight
I’m changing all of the stations
I like to think that we had it all
We drew a map to a better place
But on that road, I took a fall
Oh, baby, why did you run away?
In some ways, I’ve been thinking of my journey through this as a way to stop trying to run away and escape my life and to dwell in my own present moment. To be here, now. There’s an aspect of this that is still true. And it’s a journey I’ve been on for a long time. Today I find myself experimenting with a new perspective on the same old issue.
What is authentic pleasure?
There’s a temptation to think of pleasure as something purely sexual. Something that is about filling your senses somehow. It’s more complicated than that, though.
Do you believe in science? She’s perfect chemistry
She wanted my love but I gave her the rest of me
Don’t need no drugs, you’re my chemical
Now I’m dependent, swear I’m clinical
Addicted to those glances, taking chances tonight
I need a fix in those heroin eyes
If a person talks about touching oneself, most of the time, we assume that they’re talking about a sexual form of pleasure. There are many non sexual ways that I touch myself for pleasure. I often catch myself absently stroking the hollow underneath my throat. Why? Because it feels nice. There’s no real sexual component to it. It’s simply a pleasurable activity I can engage in making use of my sense of touch. One of many that has really no harmful effect. Drumming on the table. Playing with hair. Physical self-interactions that are certainly pleasurable, but don’t connect to my sex drive in any way that I can sense.
When I’m driving in my car
And that man comes on the radio
And he’s telling me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no!
Hey, hey, hey! That’s what I’ll say!
I can’t get no satisfaction
Conversely, I often find myself 20 minutes into scrolling on Facebook reels. I recognize that there’s pleasure in it, but it’s a false pleasure. Synthesized. It provides very little actual satisfaction. That’s one of the things that makes it so addictive. In order to get a reasonable amount of satisfaction from it, you must consume so much. It’s like panning for gold at the end of the gold rush.
My dog Murphy, on the other hand, brings me so much pleasure from his very presence. His pleasure brings me pleasure. When he plays, he brings a smile to my face. When I see his wagging tail on my arrival home, I feel the pleasure of knowing I’m welcomed and loved. Doing something special for another person brings me pleasure. Friendship. Family.
I have long been fascinated with the term of calling a boat a pleasure craft. Practically, this distinguishes it from the many boats which are designed for work and for war. A boat like this is a literal vehicle for bringing you to your pleasures. And many of these are authentic pleasures. The beauty of lakes and rivers and the outdoors. The joy of sharing pleasure with others. Transporting the other methods of filling your senses. Touch, smell, sight, taste and sound. Most of the small pleasure craft I see these days have special speakers so that you can play music with your friends. They have built-in coolers for sweet drinks. Soft cushions to sit on.
They’re built to facilitate the pleasurable experience.
I think I need to build an ark to save my humanity. I need to build my life as a pleasure craft.
Better left to my own devices
I’m addicted, it’s a crisis
My friends think I’ve gone crazy
My judgment’s gettin’ kinda hazy
My steeze is gonna be affected
If I keep it up like a lovesick crackhead
When I play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends and we defeat a monster and save a town, this too could be considered synthetic… But it’s different somehow. There’s a cooperation with real people in the imaginative world. I am the one creating and co-creating, not just consuming. By and large, I’d have to say that D&D has been an extremely positive thing for me. A framework for creativity that allows me to explore sides of myself and others. It’s for this reason that I find Dungeons and Dragons played online to be so much less satisfying. There are real losses in not being able to see the emotions in the faces of others or hear the uproarious laughter blend together in a chorus of pleasure.
This hobby, as well as others that are explicitly creative, are some of the ways in which I experience the most natural, non-synthetic pleasure. Chiefly, my recent hobbies have included rock painting and wreath making. These are pure artistic creativity. There is pleasure in acquiring the materials. There is pleasure in creating with them. There is pleasure in sharing them with others. These are complex, multilayered pleasures. The difference between a fresh California strawberry and a strawberry lollipop. A fresh Okanagan Cherry vs. a Halloween pack of Nibs. It’s the difference between eating a cheap candy caramel and a creme brulee.
And as in real life, the difference between those two things is simple. One requires either effort or funds, and even a particular season. The other just requires access. The mouth eats both and experiences pleasure almost indiscriminately. Sugar is sugar. And also, profoundly and without question, it is not.
I completely understand that I am reinventing the wheel here. It’s not as though I’m the first person to talk about this, or experience this or research this randomly on the internet. I watch Wheezy Waiter on YouTube going through experiments on how to improve his life. I occasionally try to disconnect and just be in the moment. But I’m fighting an easy life, which is not how humans tick.
And there’s a pain in my stomach
From another sleepless binge
And I struggle to get myself up again
I wanna hang on to something
That won’t break away or fall apart
Like the pieces of my heart
In some ways, writing this post is essentially a form of digital creativity. I’m on my phone right now. I am creating something to help me process as I distinguish between real and synthetic pleasure. Ironically, what I’m making in today’s world would be called a piece of content. I plan to share it. I didn’t just write this for myself.
But there’s an emptiness in something that’s simply content. There’s no love in it. There’s no love in a game where you grow wheat for profit. Even if, like in Stardew Valley, an element of relational NPCs is included, it only exposes our nakedness.
We want to be connected, so we plug into the machine. But real pleasure only comes from connection.
Connection to the living in real time is the only cure for what ails us. Other people. The natural world. And ourselves, especially our creativity.
No synthetic is ever as good as the real thing. So I’m going to try to just make a list of all the real things that bring me pleasure. I challenge you to take a moment to do the same. Maybe with some real paper and pens. Nice paper, with colours. Maybe a cup of tea and the fireplace channel playing in the background, wrapped in the softest and warmest blanket you own.
Yeah, that’s the stuff.
Give me one more chance, and you’ll be satisfied
Well my heart is where it’s always been
My head is somewhere in between
We’re free to fly the crimson sky
The sun won’t melt our wings tonight
You’re the real thing
Even better than the real thing
