"I Might Not Be Getting Anything Done, But At Least I'm Not Having Fun"

Do Americans actually resist pleasure?

I saw a tweet about procrastinating, but not really doing something you want to do, because then you really wouldn’t be getting work done. And…yes: how many times have I run out the clock, sitting in a sort of self-induced mental coma, waiting for “the work day” to end so I can feel not-guilty about not working?

And I’m self-employed!

I think it’s curious how I, with college and grad school now a bit behind me, find it somewhat mentally difficult to “have fun.” It’s almost like a skill you imperceptibly forget. Or maybe I’m living out that childhood idea that adults always seem to be working. Somewhere, I picked up this cultural script about work ethic that looks askance at leisure or enjoying yourself.

I’m not alone in this. My friend and I were talking about it, and he not only got what I was talking about, but felt his parents held some of this attitude. We were chatting about American anti-urban attitudes and I came back to this idea:

I keep having this thought in the back of my head that part of why we look askance at urban living is because it’s delightful. My friend and I were thinking about this as we walked by the derelict Turntable Junction with its erstwhile gazebo and sitting areas and winding brick pathways, the Lone Eagle craft brewery with its great big patio, the empty benches scattered around town. Even when they were bustling, people were there for specific reasons. We’re getting ice cream, we’re shopping, we’re in town to go to the bank but sure we can sit on the benches for a little bit.

“Americans feel like they need a reason to loiter,” my friend observed. There has to be a bar or a sports game or a street fair or a festival. It’s so difficult, mentally, to just let yourself sit and rest and take in the views. There’s this tendency to say, “Alright, let’s get going, can’t lounge around all day.” Americans travel to lovely walkable European cities and have fun and feel healthy, and then come back and make cracks about how Europeans don’t work.

“There’s a part of you that doesn’t really want to do something unless a part of you doesn’t want to do it,” I replied.

On Substack the other day, someone posted about growing up and moving to the suburbs and the psychology of where we choose to live, and I replied to him: “There’s a nagging thought in your head when you’re in a nice city that goes like ‘yeah this is fun but time to get back to work soon.’” To which he replied: “Oh my god I had never really put words to that feeling before but that’s exactly it. I kind of often feel like I’m getting away with something in life by living in the city.” Funny—I even used that exact phrase in a piece about the wonderful weirdness of street festivals in towns that are usually inundated with cars.

So what is the origin of this feeling of, like, having a duty to pay some tribute to your pleasure, to make up for doing something fun or leisurely or not-work by finding some way to spoil it a little bit for yourself? As if there’s some reward for not enjoying yourself too much? Is it that your brain mistakes pleasure with spending money, and cutting back on the enjoyment feels like “saving money”? Is it the shadow of Christianity and sacrifice and puritanism? Is it American capitalism? Are we wrongly speaking for everyone and just need to get sat on a couch with a shrink?

This also reminds me of a piece I was reading (from a person who might be awful, it was hard to tell) about why women often don’t like men playing video games. And in the comments, the most popular explanation was simply that video gaming is a completely useless time and ambition sink, and it’s cringey to see grown men putting so much effort into a make-believe world with no skill translation in the real world.

My wife and I play video games together, and she even encourages me to play alone (we play nice Nintendo adventure games which are more like interactive movies or artwork than the headset competitive Call of Duty stuff). But I find I have trouble playing video games alone these days. I’m just aware that there’s always a more useful thing to be done. Completely turning off the “work brain” feels like getting away with something.