Have you ever wondered why we only see the stars at night time? This was something I wondered about as a child, and it blew my juvenile mind the day I learnt that the stars don't just come out to play at night, but they're right out there during the day too. In case you were wondering, what happens is that during the day, there's a much bigger, brighter star – our solar system's central star a.k.a the sun – which lights up the sky thus preventing us from observing the lights from those other stars that are much further away. But come nighttime, when our portion of the sky is deprived of the sun's light, the darkness provides the perfect backdrop and the necessary contrast for those distant stars to shine. So, the stars are always there, but we only see them when the conditions are right, and we only appreciate them when the contrast makes it so.
This idea – contrast – permeates all facets of life. For just about every aspect of the human condition, there's a contrasting, antithetical, opposing condition. In the tropics, the year is divided into two roughly equal parts in length, the dry season and the rainy season. The further away you travel from the equator towards the poles, the dry vs wet seasons become less prevalent and instead you start to observe the four seasons, again roughly equal in length. The peaks of summer and winter are six months apart, bringing maximums and minimums respectively, of temperatures and light exposure. Spring and autumn also seem diametrically opposed, with one providing conditions for plants to bloom, and the other being the time plants lose their leaves and start to wither.
On an individual level, our emotions follow similar patterns. There's joy and pain, happiness and sadness, calm and fury, and many more such pairings. We think of some of these emotions as the good ones to seek out, and their counterparts or opposing pairs as emotions to eschew. Anyone would be forgiven for wishing there was no such thing as pain, and that life should be full of nothing but joy. Wouldn't we all want to live in perpetual calm and bliss and laughter instead of fury and anger and sorrow?
This may sound unintuitive, but while the latter sounds like a nightmare, the former isn't that much more pleasurable either. Just like the earth has opposing seasons, we also need contrasting emotions and experiences. Pain helps us appreciate joy, and tears help us appreciate laughter. I should know, I've worn both on my face in the last few weeks. We can't be happy or joyful all the time, or maybe we can, but we shouldn't want to and it shouldn't be the goal, because if we were in perpetual bliss, that'll just become the norm. We'll just adapt to that feeling and it'll become commonplace, such that the concept of bliss itself won't hold any special meaning. In other words, it'll be like breathing.
Breathing is something we do about 22,000 times a day, and it is the most fundamental thing that keeps us alive, but because it's so automatic and so commonplace, we rarely ascribe any value to it. However, if you've ever had a panic attack or a respiratory condition like asthma, or if you've ever been strangled or asphyxiated, even playfully, you can testify to how oxygen becomes more valuable than diamonds after just a few seconds. When faced with the contrasting experience of regular breathing, i.e. being deprived of oxygen even momentarily, we appreciate the true value of breath, and yet most of us are fortunate enough to take it for granted every moment of every day. And why wouldn't we? It's so easy we do it in our sleep.
This phenomenon, where we adapt to something so prevalent and start to chase more and more pronounced versions or levels of it, while neglecting previously attained levels, is called hedonic adaptation, and a person trapped in this mindset is living life on the hedonic treadmill. Much has been written about the hedonic treadmill in scientific literature, and I'll hazard a guess that we all see its effect at play in some aspects of our lives.
When we strive for that promotion at work, or that nice round number of followers, or that increase in sales metrics, or some other personal or professional milestone, all the while developing tunnel vision in a bid to secure what we consider to be that most important milestone, only to attain said milestone and experience a brief and underwhelming feeling that pales in comparison to the feeling we'd previously imagined, and then we resolve to make it right by upping the stakes and going for the next level only to feel underwhelmed again when we attain that level, that's hedonic adaptation at play. We're running hard and fast, exerting all that effort and getting exhausted, but we're not moving forward, because we're running in place on a treadmill. It doesn't work, and it's not sustainable.
This is all too prevalent in creative exploits. As an artist, there's no shortage of things you're expected to do, milestones you're expected to reach, and metrics you're expected to hit in order to be taken seriously. Case in point, a while ago I reached out to a music promoter to start a conversation about potential gig opportunities, and he said it wasn't worth his time because I didn't have enough Instagram followers. As you can imagine, it felt like a punch in the gut. That's not even the lowest blow I've received from someone in the industry; at least he even responded, and in his defence, he offered his ‘expert advice’ on how to 'get my numbers up'. In contrast, I also have many positive experiences to share, and I've shared some of them in previous blog posts and newsletters. I've been overwhelmed by the kindness, encouragement and support of strangers. It's the people at my gigs who come up and say nice things that keep my head in the clouds for days afterwards, the people that buy or download or stream or share my music online, the people that seek out my profiles and reach out with gig opportunities, the people like you, that take the time to read my writing.
This is all to say that the low points, the disappointments – and there have been lots – help me appreciate the highs. They also help me live in the moment because I know the highs don't last forever, so I enjoy them while they're here. Conversely, when I experience those low moments, I know things have to get better sometime. It doesn't make the low moments any less difficult, but there's solace and comfort in knowing that it's temporary. Writing this now reminds me of the saying, attributed to Regina Brett, that "however good or bad a situation is, it will change". So, as difficult as it may be in the moment, as much as I’d love to wish away the pain, sometimes it helps to sit with that feeling, knowing that it’ll pass someday, and when it does pass, I’ll be safe in the knowledge that better days are just ahead. Contrast is what makes life dynamic.