contentment as a form of resistance
tiny thoughts on an elusive more, the economy of desire, and hedonic treadmills.
But the mind always
wants more than it has—
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses—as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.
-Mind Wanting More by Holly J. Hughes
The wonders:
When I start an activity, I think about all of the other things I could be doing instead. If I’m working on an assignment, I think about what I’d like to read. If I’m reading, I think about my to-do list. While tackling tasks on my to-do list, I think about a leisurely walk. To describe the way we think about how busy we are, Heather Havrilesky writes:
“For the past few months, I’ve been repeating the same mantra: I have too much to do. I say this to my husband in the morning. I announce it to the dogs at lunchtime. I tell the kids when I pick them up from school in the afternoon. I text it to my friends late at night.
Why do I talk to anyone this way? It’s as if I’m announcing to everyone I encounter, ‘You’re wasting my time! I shouldn’t be here at all!’”
For some of us, it feels like there are too many things we want to do, but not enough time. These subtle ways of discontentment underpin our daily actions.
“For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is ‘I didn’t get enough sleep.’ The next one is ‘I don’t have enough time.’ Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of…We don’t have enough exercise. We don’t have enough work. We don’t have enough profits. We don’t have enough power. We don’t have enough wilderness. We don’t have enough weekends. Of course, we don’t have enough money—ever.”
-The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist
Why are we convinced that what we have and what we do is not enough? For example:
“Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations: Be happier. Be healthier. Be the best, better than the rest. Be smarter, faster, richer, sexier, more popular, more productive, more envied, and more admired…Everyone and their TV commercial wants you to believe that the key to a good life is a nicer job, or a more rugged car, or a prettier girlfriend, or a hot tub with an inflatable pool for the kids. The world is constantly telling you that the path to a better life is more, more, more—buy more, own more, making more, fuck more, be more. You are constantly bombarded with messages to give a fuck about everything, all the time…Why? My guess: because giving a fuck about more stuff is good for business.”
-The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
Therefore, since businesses are dependent on our discontentment with what we have, the currency of our culture and economy is desire, thriving on the basis of our consumption. The hamster wheel leading to an elusive destination that always seems just out of reach is what Manson calls the hedonic treadmill. To be content—and to prioritize the activities that bring us joy—in a world designed to keep people wanting more seems like an impossible task. The Nap Ministry details the ways in which “grind culture” is rooted in capitalism and racism. We have normalized it, but the demands society places is unsustainable and damaging.
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
-Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton
While there will always be a need to look out for our most basic survival, perhaps contentment can help us get there, rather than believing that we will reach contentment once we complete all that is demanded of us. This allows us to live in our imperfect reality in the present as it is, instead of berating ourselves over what it could be.
“Instead of hoarding goals and desires (Someday I will read all of these books and I will remember every word! Someday I will travel to Mozambique, and I will be dressed impeccably when I do it!), you live in the real world. Because the fantasy of having time for everything and being good at everything actually brings with it a kind of crushing stress. You spread yourself too thin, you never feel relaxed or fulfilled...
So ask yourself what matters. Who’s important to you? What do you love doing? Try to make a very short list. The goal is not to accomplish as much as you possibly can.”
-“How to Declutter Your Goals” by Heather Havrilesky
In order to combat the idea that a better life is just around the corner: after the next accomplishment, milestone, or moment, living with contentment can be a radical form of resistance—a revolutionary way of living. In Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
“We have to resist the speed, the losing of ourselves, and therefore we must organize a resistance. Spending two hours with a cup of tea during a tea meditation is an act of resistance, nonviolent resistance…we can do it together, we can resist a way of life that makes us lose ourselves. Walking meditation is also resistance. Sitting is also resistance. So if you want to stop the course of armaments, you have to resist, and begin by resisting in your own daily life…'let peace begin with me.’”
Individual contentment can be a form of resistance against a world that is designed to keep spurring our desires. But if imagining a world where we contentedly sit without a concern for time seems difficult, that’s because it is. Our built environment is designed in such a way that there is always a craving for more. In our natural environment, climate change shows us the effects of repeated neglect.
“We live in a culture that turns its back on its own needs in this exact way, every day. The fact that we’re destroying the planet and almost everyone knows it yet it continues is a true testament to this sad, imbalanced, rigid state. And that self-abnegating brittleness is manifested in all of us.”
-“Insecurity Makes you Brittle” by Heather Havrilesky
Courtney Martin from the examined family continues about the ease of neglecting activities that give us joy, as well as our well-being:
“We live in a grind culture that operates on the foundational assumption that things that make money are worth prioritizing and things that don’t—even if just on a short-term basis—are not. This has been said many ways by many wise people (Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Angela Garbes), most recently Tricia Hersey whose Nap Ministry shouts loud and defiantly that REST IS RESISTANCE!”
To reject our own contentment is unsustainable. But when we live in a system that is designed to keep people on an infinite treadmill towards nowhere, choosing contentment can go against the gradient of our reality. It can also be a way to rise up against fear.
I know that we cannot abnegate reality and sit in renunciation for the rest of our lives. We have work to do and bills to pay. Poverty is especially jarring in the U.S. It’s just that while I try to support myself, I now try not to look towards an elusive destination to give me contentment. When I try to strike a work-life balance and blur deadlines, I find contentment in the fact that I’m trying, that I finally have it in me to stand up for myself and protect my time in a way that I never did before. When I fail at prioritizing relationships, I find contentment knowing that I am so intentionally trying to cultivate relationships with people, and finally giving them the intention that they deserve rather than taking them for granted. I try to make the most of my finances and try to be proud of all the ways I’m looking out for myself. Ultimately, joy comes from the intention with which you approach your actions, rather than their outcomes (which I think describes happiness, largely out of our control). I don’t say to myself that I’ll find contentment once things are more perfect, once I have more balance, or more things.
And so I’m working on the process of finding joy within the imperfections. I’ll be attending USC for a PhD program in the fall, where I’ll need to find contentment in the process of searching for answers. I’m trying for my decisions—for any future actions—to not be guided by a mindset of will I regret not doing this but rather, can I be content while doing this? I’m in the process of not looking at things for what they could/will be, but rather, what they are in the moment.
Contentment, therefore, is a form of resistance. By not beating yourself up over where you think you should be, you’re resisting a system that’s designed to think about more all of the time. If you accept the imperfections of where you are and finally feel contentment instead of panic, don’t feel bad about it, even for a second.
Things I’m keeping an eye on (and you can too!):
“self trust: carefully listening to our intuition is both a joy and a burden”, “gut feelings: what is unexplainable is also kind of perfect”, and “heart-heavy or head-heavy” by Nix
Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn
intuition vs execution by Ava
Enough Will Never Feel Like Enough by Mimi Zhu
From “Why I'm no longer working past 2pm” by Jackie Dives. Pulling out a quote because it resonated with me so hard:
“I started to understand the reality of what is at stake if I keep gaslighting myself. I started to ask myself if it’s more important to do things the way other people do them, or if it’s more important to live authentically.
I’ve been thinking about how much energy it takes me to be in a constant state of friction. The answer is A LOT. The amount of energy required for me to actively participate in being constantly misaligned depletes me and makes it impossible for me to do the things I actually care about and want for myself, which ultimately means I’m living a life full of things that make me unhappy and devoid of things that feel right. What would happen if I stopped expending that energy in the wrong way, and instead focused it on creating the life I want?”
Community Corner:
If this post resonates with you and you want a physical reminder, consider these joy as a form of resistance “goods with positive intent” from rayo & honey. There’s a lovely print from my dear friend Nina called Joy is Dangerous.
If there’s anything you’re reading, writing, feeling, eating, organizing, please share. Also feel free to reach out via Twitter, Instagram, or by email. My website has more threads to follow up on. Sending lots of love.
The opening poem by Holly Hughes is as beautiful as this post. Love it! 💗