Do modern times allow for pleasure? … it depends only on us

Who has not seen the great movie “Modern Times” (1936) with Charlie Chaplin? Unforgettable is that scene in which he is forced to enter into the narrow gaps provided by a huge and endless series of rolling cylinders – deadly in the end under normal conditions and in the movie representing the absurd increase in speed which the industrial revolution has brought and still brings. Indeed, the latter has given us both changes and stress. Stress can be positive and this is then called eustress. Yet, Charlie Chaplin certainly did not enjoy such eustress when being fully contorted by being pressed into the machinery.

Today in “Modern Science”, we follow a writing machinery. We are forced to publish with ever increasing speed and, yet, we also “force ourselves”. A race has begun and is still increasing in speed. Though, this is not the only race in which a modern scientist has to partake. There are races around writing proposals and getting projects funded. This race is not only virtual, but actually real, because it needs to be accompanied by an ever increasing travel activity. For Europeans, this means going to Brussels, the centre of Europe’s R&D funding. Like Charlie Chaplin researchers are pushed through Europe’s narrow travel gateways. The physical exhaustion increases, as the speed increases. Still, other “races” are waiting to increase the burden. Administration, organisational, strategic, networking, and other issues also increasing speed to an insane level.

Question is how was that in the “good ole times”? When senior researchers went well dressed with tie and suit into the laboratory and for discussions at length. In these days, writing was a slow and thorough process, unlike today with all the help of computers. When researchers took the effort to write long letters to accuse and blame each other. When there was not so much pressure and one could research for years on a subject of one’s own fundamental interest. I am not blind – certainly this was also not paradise. There were funding problems as well and other issues; this is found in all centuries and even artists such as Da Vinci needed to find a “Maecenas”. Yet, this holds also for the Chaplin movie – life in a farmer’s environment can also be hard, pretty hard.

Still, there is one thing we like to assign to such “good ole times”, be it farmers or scientists in the first instance. Do we assume that they had utmost pleasure in their work and do we think we have lost that “piece of paradise”? One thing is definitively needed for enjoying pleasure and that is time. The amount of pleasure and even free time, self-determined business time seems to become smaller and smaller. It actually feels like there is none left. This sometimes stops us from enjoying science, from simply being inspired and to have the feeling that something great is going on. When at first looking at our daily agenda we immediately notice that the whole day is full of meetings, virtually back to back meetings mean aftermath, i.e., action items. We hardly have time to do these, at least with the perfection with which we would like to see it done. I think I am not the only one who sometimes feels at the end of the day like a hunted animal or, even worse, like a flat battery. The fun … where has it gone?

In such moments, I try to remind myself then that I have one of the best jobs on earth, with much creativity, inspiration, recognition, and when done with big virtuosity almost like an art. Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse told us in their novels “Doctor Faustus” and “The Glass Bead Game” (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946) about the close resemblance of mathematics and music in structured beauty. However, at the end of the day (and during as well) I do not feel like an artist. More like a mad dog, being chased from here to there. What stops me enjoying the day? What prevents me from cancelling (my presence in) a meeting? Not too much, actually. Why don’t I do it then? Is it this feeling that I must be needed everywhere, to be omnipresent? Partly yes. The other thing, however, is simply that we are surrounded by too many obligations, invitations, commitments, and more than one can handle. This includes even those among us who are the utmost working maniacs with a sleeping time that is much reduced beyond limits of good advice for health. It is simply too much. We need to decide. But we are not used to that – management courses help. Still many researchers disregard such assistance and organise their agenda in a more creative, honestly speaking free-flying style.

Most importantly, we do no allocate “time slots for pleasure”. My old chief and renowned scientist Helmut Ringsdorf slept each working day in his office for a while after lunch. I know he is not the only one doing so. This was his enjoyment and refreshment. Why do we not ask the secretary to book such time slots, with the same justification that we want to have regular group meetings? Finally, this is not even strictly needed. Having pleasure means to have attention the whole day for the golden glance of science and life. It is an active enjoyment, like we taste the first glass of wine at a dinner. This can be compared to the two types of systems making all our decisions, as the Economy Nobel Prize winner (2002) Daniel Kahneman (actually a psychologist) found out. There is the autonomous system, as he calls it, operating most of the day without our awareness to allow a smooth, fast reaction to all these multiple threats. Besides, there is the highly intelligent and creative second system. Yet, this system is lazy, we need “to turn it on” and it burns much energy. We do it when badly needed, in cases of danger, for example.

We should also learn to use such a system for pleasure. We are not Neanderthals anymore who were threatened their whole life. Neither are we are farmers threatened by modern times. Psychological insight just needs to make use of that. Enjoying is an active process. Nietzsche may have said “the will to pleasure”. Let us work on this will!

… I had pleasure writing this editorial.