To decompress recently, I’ve been playing Atelier Rorona. It’s a good game, and a great execution of what it is. But it’s not a masterpiece. Meanwhile, there’s a game called NieR: Automata that I know basically nothing about, except that it is probably a masterpiece. I’m not sure why I haven’t bought it.
In the realm of books, I actually have mostly read the best ones lately: Ursula K. Le Guin, Homer, Hofstadter. But there are a few books in the list that weren’t very good, that I could have predicted wouldn’t be very good, but that I, as a form of leisure, soldiered through anyway. This despite the fact that the literary canon is very easy to browse, and that I can have whatever book I want shipped to my house in a matter of days.
Or music. Even just within specific niche artists I like, there are albums I haven’t bothered to listen to, instead letting YouTube take me on a journey of random (but yes, very good) Donkey Kong Country covers.1
So what’s the deal? For every category of art, the best stuff is easy to find and easy to access. I don’t mean to be a snob here, either: I know exactly which Pokemon fanfiction I should read, too, and my life would be a lot better for it. Yet I haven’t!
I don’t know why. But I’ll speculate. About two reasons, in particular.
Leisure is a Vibe
Every week, an enterprising hedonist (let’s call him Harry) could set aside one hour for leisure planning. During leisure planning hour, Harry would research the very best artistic offerings, and do the logistical work to deliver them to his sensory apparatus. Renewing subscriptions, ordering physical objects, scanning literary and music reviews, etc. Leisure planning hour would probably be boring. But once it was over, Harry would have an airtight plan for his leisure activities. Any time he had a free moment, he’d know exactly what to do to blow off steam.
As far as I know, almost nobody does this. It’s obviously a good idea, at least in principle; everybody hates scrolling through Netflix, frowning at the fact that every option sounds a little bit wrong. So why not be rigorous, and make it a priority to tee up awesome leisure time? One reason: because habits are tough to build, and lots of social technology has yet to be invented. Another: because the vibes are off.
There are lots of benefits to consuming great art, right up to the life changing. But lots of art consumption is done to destress, to unplug, to escape from the need for strategic thinking and careful optimization. Harry’s system technically doesn’t mix the two: his planning hour isn’t part of his leisure time. But it’s associated with his leisure time, so getting logistics involved feels bad.
So, that’s my first reason. That being organized enough to curate my entertainment would feel like work, and the work vibe doesn’t want to sit so close to the play vibe on my plate.
Mediocrity is a Balm
One of my favorite memories from early in my relationship with my wife is lying in bed all day, playing a low-end flash game while she watched. The flash game wasn’t very good, and it was an objectively pretty silly way for us to spend our time. But it was also sublime.
Which is to say, there’s something about art that’s just so-so, that doesn’t feel like it quite deserves one’s full attention. If I bought NieR Automata, or started reading The Iliad, my mind would focus. Even if I wanted to just chill, it would feel important, unconsciously, to properly appreciate what I was experiencing. A little flash game, though, it’s easier to also pay attention to the pretty girl nuzzling your arm, or the way the light filters in through the window, or nothing at all. Navigating stupid, poorly optimized menus is a meditative experience, in a way that sobbing at the end of Undertale isn’t.
It can feel weird to seek out an experience that is probably just okay. Especially when - and I do like this fact - the modern world gives us so much access to greatness. You really can bathe yourself in the greatest stuff ever made, as often as you want. But the revealed preference is that while it’s a lot of fun to read Three Kingdoms sometimes, paging back and forth between the volume with the main text and the volume with the footnotes, it’s also fun to sink 20 hours into making yet another philosopher’s stone.
Bonus Section: Meta
I’m pretty confident this isn’t among my 5 best blog posts. I’ve been trying to produce at least one per week, because I find the habit enjoyable and don’t want to lose it. But I don’t really have the fire today. So I hope, if you have read this far, you’ve derived the same kind of enjoyment as I sometimes do from essays that aren’t life changing, but were fun to skim. That maybe your mind wandered a little, and you appreciated the taste of your coffee extra.
That’s all for this week! The Atelier calls.
I haven’t played Donkey Kong Country, or at least not enough to have nostalgic memories of it. The music is just that good.