before she died my mother bought me a winter coat with a lot of velcro on it. it’s really warm but the velcro is a pain. i wear it anyway.
sitting on the subway reading a book a young woman sat down next to me. within a minute or so she asked me what i thought of the book i was reading. it’s by Dan Gilbert, a Harvard Psychologist and researcher into Hedonics – the study of pleasure. the book is called Stumbling on Happiness and while is sounds like something from the self-help section (actually, i think barnes and noble stocks it in the self-help section) it is rich with all sorts of very interesting studies on, among other things, cognitive biases and, in general, thinking about the process of thinking – and how our penchant for thought errors and flawed heuristics dooms us to be persistently UN-happy. i’ve learned a lot from that book, and the research he cites has opened up all sorts of things for me. so, i told this woman what i’m telling you – i like it a lot.
she smiled, we exchanged a few pleasantries and that was that. while hurtling through the tunnel i thought about rekindling the conversation. before i could do anything we were pulling into a station. she tugged on my sleeve, said, loudly, “C’mon, let’s go!” and stood up.
Heeeedonics, baby!!!
i jumped up and followed her onto the platform. there were a lot of people getting off the train and we were separated – i kept my eye on her and moved through the crowd to catch up with her. as i got closer i saw her talking to someone else – who i realized was sitting across from us on the train, and then it all dawned on me….
fucking velcro.