Today's featured TED Talk is on the origins of pleasure. Speaker Paul Bloom argues that the history of an object (or emotion) influences our experience of the pleasure of it.
He offers some understandable examples: no one wants to own a forged painting, even if it is technically equal or superior to the original. Likewise, a piece of chewed gum is worthless ... unless it was once chewed by Brittney Spears. Then it sells for up to $14,000 on eBay. (Not a bad day's take home pay, huh?)
Here's the video:
Paul Bloom: The origins of pleasure | Video on TED.com
Bloom hints at (but doesn't really develop) the idea that our emotions in relationships are richer because of history as well. Our degree of pleasure - in sex, in laughter, in sharing a milkshake - may be significantly higher simply because we're sharing it with someone whose history is entwined with our own.
This aligns with a thought from David Brooks' new book "The Social Animal": "... when you look deeper into the unconscious, the separations between individuals begin to get a little fuzzy. It becomes ever more obvious that the swirls that make up our own minds are shared swirls. We become who we are in conjunction with other people becoming who they are."
This becoming gets spread out over a lifetime in marriage. And while there are good days and bad days in the midst of it, what a beautiful thing to become who you are, to feel the pleasure build, with another.
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