By David Fortier
Come Sunday morning, the extreme hot temperature and humidity will have supposedly burned off and left us with more pleasant weather. The rains will again have come and gone, most times with some ferocity. Heavy rain builds up on our roof and spouts out onto our driveway, where after repeated pounding the black top has begun to crack. Such is life.
On Saturday night, Mary and I had planned to attend the Bristol Blues game, but the rains came and the game was postponed. This is one of the nights when there were supposed to have been fireworks, so we guessed that they would be postponed, too. We settled into our typical weekend routine and intended to stream a show or two, when we got a text that the fireworks were still on.
What did we do? We made a plan: watch a show and see some fireworks. We watched an episode of “Cleopatra” on Netflix. Then, we got in the car around 9 p.m. and drove over to the Bristol Historical Society parking lot for some prime fireworks watching. We rolled down our windows to get the full effect. That was fun.
***
Reading/listening — A must for anyone who listens to podcasts, and everyone else, is a two-part series from the Hidden Brain podcast: the first of the two is “The Paradox of Pleasure,” (click here) and the second, “The Path to Enough” (click here). Featured is Anna Lembke, the author of “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (2021).”
Host and executive director Shankar Vedanam discusses with Lembke how pleasure and pain try to maintain an equal balance between themselves. Simply, when we feel pleasure, we experience a type of pain that reminds us of the pleasure, forcing us into a cycle. This cycle of pleasure and pain worked for human beings when we lived in times of scarcity. Now that we pretty much have everything we need in abundance within the grasp of our phones, this cycle turns on us.
Understanding this dynamic is helpful in understanding our own inability to be satisfied, to be looking for that next “fix,” so to speak. As a practicing therapist, Lembke has plenty of anecdotes from her experience, and even shares her own experience when things got out of hand for her—it involves reading, believe it, romances novels. The podcast offers some suggestions for learning to recognize and deal with this phenomenon.
For reading, I returned to an old favorite, “How to Write a Thesis,” by Umberto Eco, the late Italian intellectual, both a semiotician and popular novelist. He wrote “The Name of the Rose,” in which, according to Wikipedia, he combines semiotics and “with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory.” Sounds very highfalutin and something to avoid, but it’s really a page-tuner mystery.
In “How to Write a Thesis,” Eco takes up what might be considered a boring subject and infuses it with humor—he is just a tad bit sarcastic, which means entertaining—and some very practical advice. If I were a student, in high school or at university, I would make this book not only a mandatory read but a companion that I consulted often. It is not simply a literary piece he is talking about, but “a thesis” for all types of academic disciples.
Have a good week!
“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org.
All TBE readers, supporters and donors
The Bristol Edition will be limiting the number of stories non-members and free readers may access each week. This decision is based on our financial projections and, most certainly, to remind people that TBE is serious about providing accurate, timely and thorough reporting for Bristol. To do this we have devised a financial support structure that makes unlimited access extremely affordable, beginning with a $6 monthly donation.
- Non-members will be able to access four (4) articles per week.
- Free readers and people who have subscribed by email will be able to access four (4) articles per week.
- Donors and financial supporters will have unlimited access as long as they log in.
Note: Donors may have to contact TBE if they find they are being limited, since we will need to set up a membership account for you. Email editor@bristoledition.org for instructions. Sorry for any inconvenience. People with financial difficulties may write editor@bristoledition.org to be considered for free access.