Edited by Madison Challis
Can there be joy in total freedom? I don’t know. Sit down on your couch, or your bed, and go onto Netflix; hit the motorway and scroll up and down the virtual space. How does it feel? I don’t think I’ve experienced joy at seeing this selection since my family first got Netflix. Selection is the word: what we have is not a paywall beyond which lies a big box of constantly updating chocolates; we pay for the privilege of taking part in the selection task of saying no a million times waiting for the right show or film to appear. I did not turn on the TV to partake in never-ending Guess Who. I have more choice before me than I could hope for and, faced with this freedom to embark on a sort of deselection quest, I am left hopeless.
In addition to having a wide selection of on-demand media- whether it be Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, or TikTok- where we can swim, saturated, in a pool of immediate gratification, we have an equally difficult, urgent burden to bear: a lack of boredom. The ability to use these impossibly vast media services places us firmly in a post-boredom age. The post-boredom age is terrible and delicious. I am well aware that my inability to be decisive and commit to choosing a film without it being the perfect one is something only I can improve. Terrible. I also understand that, in an age where there is no regulated TV schedule we must all be limited to, I do not need to exercise acceptance and patience enduring the Friday night film and can instead binge YouTube video essays out of sync with the rest of the world. Delicious.
What is of primary interest to me is that there seem to be two ways of looking at the post-boredom information-filled lives we inhabit: One, that this new frontier brings with it an understandably alien array of new struggles with which we and previous generations are unfamiliar, and that these struggles are simply ones we must learn to cope with; Two, that the infinite options and this fully-known, secretless, magicless, demystified world we’ve created is one that we cannot help but feel useless and overwhelmed in. Think about it- we do not live in a time where there is any need for curiosity or wonder, where there is any excuse or opportunity to sit with the inability to find the answer at will. Alexander wept when there were no more worlds to conquer, and I myself am very upset that I’ve been robbed of the joy of not remembering an actor’s name, only for it to pop in my head hours later. You may see by now that I’m at least curious about the latter view of the subject.
To focus on the example of forgetting a name to remember it later- I think these are simple pleasures not only for the conscious mind, but for the self as a whole. The gentle endorphin kick, relieving a mental itch finally scratched, gives the body its share in the glory, and the subconscious self is reminded of its own ability and importance. It seems silly, but these simple problem solving rituals are beautiful and important maintainers of esteem and engagement. When I went on a two-week cycling trip with my friend A, we were nothing short of healed by the daily process of gentle problem solving: wake up; eat; pack; cover the necessary distance to reach the next campsite; set up camp; eat; sleep; repeat. Each and every existential concern, ticked off one by one in sync with the sun. By the end of the day, it was impossible to do anything and- I cannot understate how beautiful and peaceful this felt- there was nothing left to do. We had only a handful of options for how our day was to go, and thus we had only so far to spiral, and that is a safe, warm feeling.
While I could, in normal circumstances, chase some light dopamine hits from TikTok or Instagram through some sweet sweet scrolling that only ends when I decide, on this cycling trip I had the chance to feel and show myself at the end of the day that the day was done. I abstained from using the phone easily due to the tiring nature of the trip as a long cycling journey; the comparison with the cycle trip is here to illustrate an extreme opposite in terms of exposure- one that is equally all-encompassing for both cycle-me and civilian-me. In a space with less freedom, I could revel in the experience and walk away feeling as though I had been free in a profound, clean sense within limitation, rather than in a literal, uncomfortable one. I suppose it’s as simple as stating that I am free to eat McDonald’s everyday, but I would feel more dietarily satisfied with a healthy diet.
Consider, then, the Netflix deselection process of rejecting all to find the one. Instead of a billion things to choose from, surely I would get more joy from buying a DVD, bringing it home, and watching that. At the end of the day, by the time I’ve arrived home, there is nothing to do but watch the film chosen by me earlier. Peace. A favourite activity of mine used to be downloading a set few albums or playlists on Spotify to listen to outside the house, before I had unlimited data, in an imperfect attempt to recapture the feeling I had ten years ago with my iPod nano.
I remember travelling home from a summer camp after 2 weeks from home, journeying for several hours on a bus along the west coast of Ireland. I remember flicking through the 20 or so albums I had downloaded on the iPod to find Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti- I’d been listening to it that summer on and off in that young, wise way we all used to emotionally absorb music as children. There was no question, and I listened to disc 2 all the way through. To this day I cannot separate In The Light from that landscape, and to this day I cannot remember a more engaged, purposeful, accepting, and willing participation with the music I love. Of course, the rose-tinted glasses are glued to my face as I write; however, the fact remains that having much less freedom and access to choose any album, get cold feet, reselect, resort to a YouTube video, etc, must have played a part in the joy- the closest tangible concept I can think of is that this would have given me at the time a greater sense of, and engagement with, presence.
At the very least, it must also be considered that I would have had no anticipation of having a wide variety of choices like we do now, and so any indecision would be towards to a matter of 20 albums on an iPod, one or two of which being my favourites of the bunch by necessity anyway, rather than towards an infinite sonic library. This understanding would surely be that held by one who is both more free to enjoy their lot and less exposed to, or worried by, an impossible game of Guess-Who. No more than my cycling self earlier, my younger self had only a few paths to choose, and could only go so wrong- this frees one from the deadly musing, what if? What if there’s a better album, movie, video? Firstly, I like all the iPod albums, chose them all, and simply feel like Led Zeppelin right now; Secondly, maybe there is a better album out there beyond me, but that’s irrelevant to me as I am 15 and sitting on a bus right now. I can only spiral so far.
Limitation brings creativity in art, and the art of participation in art as an audience member surely should not be underestimated. There is a depth of experience, an enriching of one’s emotional palate, in sitting through a film, play, or book that is, at times, boring. While now I find it all too easy to end my assessment there and switch to flashier, more obviously exciting content, I am robbing myself of a deeper, more nuanced interrogation of the art, and of myself.
I used to wonder if I was losing my attention-span, even while enjoying long-form video essays, films, and slow books, only to realise that perhaps this is inaccurate. I think it’s more accurate to say that my patience for the receipt of gratification has been reduced, and that my attention-span is simply unused and left dormant by my dopamine-hungry brain. There is a reduced literacy from this lack of interrogation despite maintaining an attention-span- the scary truth that content is either fantastic or boring and either way forgotten as I move to the next bit of content. A shallow appreciation leads to a binary and more extreme view and approach, and I wonder what joys I’ve missed.
Eighteen years ago, I lived in California, and I remember the earlier iteration of Netflix; it was not a video store, but a warehouse of DVD’s one could access via courier through a subscription fee. Films would be ordered via the internet and delivered through the letterbox within a few days, to be delivered back within the week, effectively the home delivery version of video stores. Except with Netflix, in these early days, there was a limit so foreign to its current state that it’s hard to believe: you could not order another film until and unless you returned the one you ordered.
The joy was not in having a million films I could watch right now, where the decision could be made and remade- we had the joy of sifting through titles on Tuesday that we would watch on Friday, where, once you ordered that thing, there was no turning back. This, to me, feels like the perfect mix- grand selection, with a gentle limitation where, once you’ve ordered, once you’re on the bus away from wifi, once you’re on your bike, you have to live with and connect with your choice. The thrill is not daily, or every Friday; it is a handful of memories like Led Zeppelin on the bus- I’d happily wait another 10 years for as beautiful a memory, as quiet a memory, as that.
Things are loud and messy and infinite now- infinite beyond tangibility, yet the issue remains tangible in the sense that a decision must be made regardless. I believe and hope, against my rose-tinted glasses, that there is a way to cope with the limitless deselection abilities at hand today, and rediscover the joy of, for want of a better word, limitation.
Al Pacino - Daily Mail
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