A short post: I just got back from seeing the movie “The Watchmen”, which I very much enjoyed. On the way out, one of my coworkers (it was a company event) made noises clearly indicating he didn’t like it. I took the bait and asked, “What did you think?”
“God. It was awful,” he groaned.
I’ve had experiences like that, of having experiences and fixating on how much I didn’t enjoy them. Often it’s a movie, and I’ll make a big show of letting my friends who went with me know how much I didn’t like it. It’s interesting to me that in these cases, if I’m being honest with myself, I wasn’t open to enjoying the movie; I’d already made up my mind, and in that sense I don’t regret that I didn’t enjoy it more.
On the one hand it’s easy to pay lip service to the idea that I envy the easily pleased, but the reality is that I value my discriminating taste and feel that sophistication enhances my appreciation of the truly good. But I think it’s important to acknowledge, when I don’t enjoy something, when I’m also choosing to enjoy my disdain, anger, or incredulity.
In this case my coworker wasn’t dismayed he didn’t like the movie more. If he were, he probably would have walked out quietly and if asked, shrugged and frowned a little and said, “I didn’t care much for it.” Instead, it was a showy thing, almost taking a masochistic delight in how unpleasant he found it all.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I aspire to acknowledge in those situations: “I’m taking pleasure in my experience of disgust.” And be OK with that. I think there’s an equanimity to it, and an unwillingness to acknowledge the ways I take pleasure in so-called negative emotion is what gives it the negative charge, makes it an unskillful habit.
Of course, while my coworker was making a show of disliking the movie, I noticed in my own head that I was taking a little pleasure in feeling disdain towards him for being so showy about it all. It’s like the old question, “Is it OK to hate those who hate?” Really, my equanimity is only about me – and in this case, I realized, even if he wasn’t practicing equanimity, I could still allow his negativity to wash over me without moving me. Or, in this case, since it moved me to critical negativity myself, I could be honest – I’m taking pleasure in judging him. Not the end of the world.
