I am currently staring at a bill for $72 for a bowl of ‘deconstructed’ oatmeal, wondering if I can charge this to a version of myself that doesn’t exist yet. The oatmeal is served in a bowl made of hand-carved volcanic rock, and it sits on a table that was apparently reclaimed from a shipwreck in 1902. I am in a boutique hotel in a corner of the world where the air is thin and the expectations are heavy. I have spent more on this 2-day getaway than I spend on my rent in a month, and the primary emotion I am feeling is a sort of polite, expensive panic. It is the panic of a person who has bought a ‘transformation’ and is still waiting for the shipment to arrive.
Everything in this room is designed to make me feel significant, yet the more I spend, the smaller I feel. We use expense as a proxy for meaning because we are terrified that meaning might actually be free and, therefore, accessible to everyone.
The Archaeology of Emptiness
Diana Z., a digital archaeologist who spends her days excavating the discarded hard drives of the early internet, once told me that the most expensive projects she’s seen were usually the ones with the least amount of actual data. She has this theory that when people know they have nothing to say, they build a very expensive stage to say it on.
High Cost
Low Cost
HD Nothing
Data Value
Financial Value
Diana’s Analogy
She’s currently working on a project from 2002 involving a failed luxury travel startup that promised ‘algorithmic enlightenment.’ It went bankrupt, leaving behind 222 terabytes of high-definition footage of clouds. I feel like those clouds right now. I am high-definition nothing, draped in $322-a-night linen.
I think about the math of misery. To justify the cost, every 52 minutes of this experience needs to produce a revelation. It’s a strange way to live-treating joy like a dividend that must be paid out on a strict schedule.
The plane movie felt more real than the landing.
Managing Spontaneity
There is a specific kind of violence in a ‘curated’ experience. It leaves no room for the accidental. If I want to see the sunrise, I have to book a ‘Sunrise Journey’ with a guide who will tell me exactly how to feel about the light. We are paying to have our spontaneity managed.
$1222
I put in the money, I press the button for ‘Awe,’ and I get angry when the machine jams.
Wet, duct-taped boots, entirely alive.
VS
Demanding dividends on happiness.
I am an investor in my own happiness, and I am a very demanding shareholder. I find myself looking at more grounded options lately, searching for that middle ground where the logistics are handled but the soul isn’t stifled. For instance, when I was researching the Kumano Kodo, I found that looking into specialists like
Hiking Trails Pty Ltd can offer a structure that doesn’t feel like a gilded cage. It’s about finding a path that has been walked for 1002 years, rather than a path that was paved yesterday to lead you to a gift shop.
[the price of the view is the loss of the vision]
High-Friction Environments
Diana Z. would probably say that my current hotel room is a ‘high-friction environment disguised as luxury.’ Every interaction is a transaction. The ‘complimentary’ fruit basket is a 2-page document of liability waivers. I spent 42 minutes this morning trying to figure out how to turn off the smart-lights, which were programmed to mimic a ‘circadian sunset’ even though it was 10 AM.
10:00 AM
(Darkness)
I eventually just sat in the dark. It was the most honest moment of the trip so far. Just me, the darkness, and the knowledge that I am paying $22 an hour for the privilege of being confused by a lightbulb. We rationalise these expenditures by calling them ‘self-care,’ but I suspect they are actually ‘self-avoidance.’
Self-Avoidance vs. Self-Care
$222 Session
Forest Bathing (Receipt required)
Free Walk
Inhaling Green (Scent of cologne)
“I could have ‘bathed’ in the forest for free if I’d just walked 12 minutes in the opposite direction. But I didn’t trust the forest to be effective unless it was accompanied by a receipt.”
Mediocrity is Expensive
This is the great lie of the modern travel industry: that the intensity of the experience is proportional to the density of the wallet. Authenticity is actually quite messy and often involves a 22-hour bus ride with a chicken. It doesn’t come with a 52-page brochure.
The most expensive form of mediocrity.
Requires risk and accepting boredom.
[pleasant is the death of profound]
Documenting the Present
I look at the 22nd photo I’ve taken of my avocado toast. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. It’s also completely tasteless. I realize that I’ve spent the last 2 hours trying to document my enjoyment rather than actually enjoying anything. I am a digital archaeologist of my own present, creating a record of a life I am too busy paying for to actually live.
Hiding the realization that I was bored in paradise.
Diana Z. would have a field day with my iCloud storage. She’d see the identical shots of the same horizon and know exactly what I was trying to hide: the fact that I was bored out of my mind in paradise.
The Walk Back to Life
I think I’ll go for a walk now. Not a ‘Guided Nature Trek’ or a ‘Mindfulness Meander.’ Just a walk. I’ll leave the $72 oatmeal half-eaten. I’ll leave the smart-lights to their circadian rhythms. I’ll go find a place where nothing is for sale and see if I can remember how to be a person who doesn’t need a receipt to prove she exists.
The most expensive lesson I’ve learned is that the things worth having are usually the ones you can’t get a refund for, and the experiences that change you are the ones that didn’t care if you paid for them or not.