Camping and my hedonic treadmill

After just 4 nights of mediocre sleep outdoors at a campsite, a hot shower is incredible. Little sensations that I typically ignore suddenly become vividly clear. Being warm, being clean. I return home, and discover how effortless it is to avoid the sun, the cold, the insects, the snow, the heat. I am suddenly liberated from the endless tasks of collecting firewood and filtering water. I feel like every small thing in my environment is a blessing. Internet, running water, indoor plumbing, electric stovetops.

As I live with them, the pleasures disappear. I become ungrateful. I take all these things for granted. I pick up new Sisyphean tasks on top of work - checking social media, my message clients (slack, discord, whatever), and endlessly pruning my e-mail. I can go days without having a meaningful conversation with anybody. I don’t even get to light things on fire.

After a day spent comfortably indoors in pyjamas, an ice-cold shower is traumatic. The shock makes me hyperventilate. My body reacts with terror. My heart rate plummets and every second stretches out into eternity. I hurry to clean myself and rinse insufficiently. When I step out, I feel totally different. Warm clothes become a blessing. A thin bowl of warm soup becomes divine.

I consider this sufficient evidence for the existence of the hedonic treadmill. I encourage you to try this for yourself. See how amazing a room temperature towel can be by dunking yourself in icy water, shocking your rational self into a shivering, gibbering animal.

Some friends disagree with me. The most common reply I hear is some flavor of “I don’t like being a shivering, gibbering animal. Cold showers are unpleasant, and I don’t like unpleasant things. The suffering I experience in that moment is not worth the joy I’ll extract from the cessation of the unpleasant thing”.

I find that experiencing these extreme troughs and peaks make the average experience of existing better. The temporary suffering is quickly forgotten, and my present stays pleasant for hours to come - sometimes even days, depending on how extreme the suffering was. The same thing happens backwards with sobriety after extended periods of drug use.

A little daily suffering reminds me of the extreme luxury I enjoy.