Thinking about obsession. I am looking for a new city and apartment, as I am currently a bit unmoored socially and professionally. Apartment- and house-hunting can become an obsession. I was doing internet searches last night for a new place, and three hours went by in a flash. I was looking at places in Western Europe. The UK still lets Americans visit during the virus lockdowns “with restrictions” (Croatia and Ukraine too, and Mexico still lets us visit without restrictions). London is too expensive or “dear” as they say there. I found some Sonder apartments in Edinburgh that I could afford for about five months, if the immigration people there would allow me in for independent scholarship. A longer-term place in a medium-sized US city would be more practical. For a longer-term stay in the UK, my budget would only allow a studio flat, and I find those depressing at this stage of life.
But back to obsession. My point is you can be obsessed by almost anything: house-hunting, food, alcohol, drugs, sex, people, political leaders or issues, exercise, work, art, nature, trainspotting. A newspaper columnist once said the problem with obsessives is that they are boring. I think eventually they even bore themselves. Calvin Klein advertised this fragrance called Obsession heavily in the 1980s (they still sell it). I thought the name was weird, but much about the 80s was weird. Why not call your fragrance Addiction or Dog Vomit? I think SNL did a parody of the artsy European-influenced TV ads Calvin Klein ran for the product.
In literature, I think of William Blake’s “The Tyger” as a poetic reflection on obsession with evil and theodicy, even though some say it is a more direct commentary on the French Revolution. In Moby Dick, Ahab pacing back and forth on the deck of the of The Pequod while monomaniacally brooding about his pursuit of the white whale has always struck me as a stark image of obsession.
On addiction, a close cousin of obsession, I heard someone say, “there’s nothing sadder than an addict with a high tolerance for pain.” For some rock bottom isn’t enough of a deterrent. I thought it was ironic that as president George W. Bush said the US was “addicted” to oil because he had been both an oil man and apparently a problem drinker when younger (It’s interesting that US presidents for 24 consecutive years apparently had substance-abuse problems in their youths: Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama…characteristic of Baby Boomers, I guess). George F. Will offered a rejoinder to and qualification of Bush’s remark, saying the US is only addicted to oil in the sense that we need it.
On sexual obsession, I think Lord Chesterfield warned his son that giving too much attention to sex will blur and block the finer pleasures of life. “Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable,” he said in his famous letters to his son.
But I find some of Chesterfield’s sayings too prim and prudish. He thought laughter was uncivilized; I prefer Toni Morrison’s saying that we shouldn’t trust people who don’t laugh. I suppose laughter is one of those divisive issues like bow ties. I once jokingly told a bow tie-wearing roommate, “never trust a man in a bow tie;” he replied, “always trust a man in a bow tie.” Haha.