All’s Right With The World!
L. M. Chavdarov
YOU GET WHAT YOU GET, AND YOU DON’T GET UPSET. This age-old adage, familiar from childhood, and echoing through generations, transcends its playful tune, and hides an uncomfortably accurate understanding of human hope, desire, and contentment. In more academic circles, the truth within holds another name: the “Hedonic Treadmill”. This theory elucidates that people’s happiness is a relatively stable value, swiftly recovering from ecstasy, and misery alike. Like a child’s fleeting excitement over a new toy – and their parents’ dissatisfaction at seeing it cast aside and covered in dust a few weeks later – adults too are forever chasing ephemeral joys, yet unable to escape their perennial dissatisfaction.
From an evolutionary perspective, this constant cycle of both craving and complacency makes a lot of sense. Our distant ancestors, never fully satisfied with their current conditions, would have been driven to seek more: more food, more safety, more mates. And, in harder times, it would’ve comforted them, and enabled them to live their lives happily. However, in today’s modern world, where our evolution has grown stagnant; where the next source of pleasure – be it material possessions, adrenaline-filled experiences, or social media likes – is just around the corner, delicately manufactured, and ready for your consumption, the implications of this evolutionary trait become more problematic. A hundred-thousand-year long pursuit is over; everything we’ve ever dreamed of is within our arms’ reach, and now that we’ve stopped running, we’re borne back on the treadmill’s inertia.
While human history has long been punctuated with periods of rise and fall, the unprecedented ease with which we can now gratify ourselves is extinguishing the ancient fuel of our relentless progress. We’re forever willing to accept less, and acclimatise to longer working hours, and poorer living conditions. Even when we do seek out the fulfilment of our ambitions, we’re permanently distracted and misled. Videogames, participation awards, likes – everywhere you look, the modern world has mechanised the falsification of true achievement, leaving us with all of the temporary joy, and none of the long-term satisfaction.
When looking upon the global stage, the ramifications of this collective cultural complacency are clear, and alarming. Like Robert Browning’s Pippa, we’re cheerfully dancing past a whole host of unresolved issues. This isn’t an article about climate change, or economic inequality, or war, or disease, or any of that; by now, everyone’s heard it, and is sick of hearing about it. But why isn’t anything being done? Issues which would have historically been the cause of revolt often fall to the wayside in public discourse, overshadowed by the newest tech gadget, or celebrity scandal. The news cycle, once a vital tool for informing the public, and spurring action, has become a whirlwind of fleeting distractions.
This prevailing apathy is particularly concerning in the context of human ambition, or lack thereof. It is what has driven humanity to conquer unknown lands, explore scientific frontiers, and challenge societal norms. Today, however, there seems to be a growing sense that most of the world’s significant challenges are beyond us, as individuals; either insurmountable, or inconsequential. Why worry about the world when you can just spiral down another YouTube rabbit hole? We’re increasingly fostering a culture of stagnation, and undermining our own potential for groundbreaking innovation and change.
Moreover, there’s a fallacy in equating comfort with satisfaction, as anyone who’s ever procrastinated knows. In a world where instant gratification is often just a click away, there is a temptation to substitute deep, meaningful pursuits with shallow, ephemeral joys. The allure of the immediate overshadows the satisfaction derived from persistent effort, and hard-won achievements. The digital age, with its infinitely flowing streams of entertainment, information, and interaction, often feels like an endless buffet. And, like any buffet, the initial thrill of abundance can quickly give way to a feeling of overindulgence, leaving one lethargic, and unfulfilled.
In this bleak landscape, it’s also worth considering the role of education in our brave new world. Historically, it was our most powerful tool, as we strove to tame a chaotic world, and cast light into the darkness. It fostered critical thinking, instilled values, and equipped the youth with the tools they needed to confront, and overcome the challenges of their time. But today, there’s a risk that education is becoming merely another commodity – a means to an end, rather than an end in, and of itself. The focus on standardised testing, rote learning, and the relentless pursuit of grades relentlessly eclipses the deeper, more holistic goals that education ought to strive for.
It’s a challenging conundrum. On the one hand, humanity has never had it so good. The marvels of technology, medicine, and communication have opened doors that our ancestors could only dream of. Yet beneath this sparkling opulence and luxury lies a spectre of indifference, and myopic blindness to the countless hardships that paved the way to our quality of life. The hedonic treadmill is our past, present, and future; dread it, run from it, it’ll be there all the same. But, as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and nobody gets happier, if we’re to avoid a second dark age, we’ll need to be aware of what we are as a species: