Finally, a Problem
I am a social worker and a single father. My daughter lives with me at least 90 percent of the time, probably closer to 95 percent. That's our everyday life, and I've long since grown accustomed to it. There's always something to do. Something needs to be organised, taken care of, discussed, or decided. Sometimes it's something important, sometimes something trivial. In any case, hardly a day goes by without life making some sort of demand on me.
Then my daughter's mother took her away for a week's holiday.
I happened to be on holiday myself. An entire week in which I didn't have to drive anyone anywhere, organise anything, or accommodate anyone else's schedule. I could get up whenever I wanted, eat whenever I wanted, and do whatever I pleased. The sort of existence millions of people probably dream about.
On the first day, I thought it was wonderful.
On the second day, too.
By the third day, I began wondering what on earth I was supposed to do with all this freedom.
Of course, I could have read a book. Or watched a film. Or gone swimming. I live in a region where lakes, swimming pools, and recreational opportunities are hardly in short supply. But somehow, none of it particularly appealed to me. The world had apparently decided to leave me alone for an entire week.
Eventually, I decided to drive to Germany. Why Germany? No idea. There was no particular reason. I'd been there a thousand times before. I simply wanted to get into the car, put on an audiobook, get out of Switzerland, and see where I ended up. Perhaps I'd discover a lake somewhere. Perhaps not. It was less about having a destination than about having somewhere to go at all. I needed to escape the comfort of my own home, even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with being there.
And then something wonderful happened.
On the road between Bregenz and Lindau, a tunnel had been closed. Ahead of me, an enormous traffic jam had formed. Cars were packed bumper to bumper, nothing was moving, and hundreds of people were presumably sitting behind their steering wheels, cursing the day they'd decided to leave the house.
I, on the other hand, was delighted.
Finally, a problem.
Naturally, I had no intention of remaining stuck in traffic. That would have been too easy. I began searching for alternative routes, studying the map, considering where I might turn off and which roads might still be clear. Suddenly, my day had a purpose. I had to find a solution. I had to act. I had an adversary.
It was a traffic jam, but you have to work with what you've got.
Eventually, I managed to bypass the congestion. I had escaped. I had overcome a difficulty that I had gone out of my way to encounter in the first place. As I continued driving, a peculiar feeling of satisfaction came over me. Something had happened. Not much, admittedly. But something. The day had acquired a story.
And at some point, I had to laugh at myself.
For years, I'd occasionally wished I could simply have nothing to do. Now I'd finally achieved precisely that, and after three days I was ready to drive voluntarily into a traffic jam just to make something happen.
Blaise Pascal would probably have had little difficulty explaining my behaviour. In his *Pensées*, he suggests that all of humanity's unhappiness stems from one simple fact: our inability to remain quietly in a room.
Pascal didn't merely mean that people like to keep busy. He saw something far more fundamental in our need for diversion. We seek distractions, adventures, arguments, pleasures, and difficulties because we find stillness hard to bear. The moment we come to rest, we are confronted with ourselves. And apparently, that isn't always a particularly pleasant experience.
I would disagree with Pascal on one point, however. I wasn't afraid of being alone with myself. Nor was I unhappy. Quite the opposite. I was perfectly content.
I was simply bored.
Perhaps Pascal was right in his observation, but not necessarily in his diagnosis. Perhaps we aren't always running away from ourselves. Perhaps we simply want something against which to test our abilities.
Dostoevsky went a step further in *Notes from Underground*. He imagined a world in which every human need had been satisfied and all social arrangements had been organised rationally. A world in which nobody would have to suffer because everything operated according to the principles of reason.
And what would human beings do?
They would probably commit some spectacular act of stupidity.
Not because there was anything to gain from it. Not because it made sense. But precisely because it made no sense. Because they wanted to prove that they still possessed a will of their own. That they were not merely components of a perfectly functioning machine.
Dostoevsky's man would probably start smashing up the furniture after three days in paradise.
I can sympathise.
We live in an age in which practically everything is supposed to be optimised. Our health, our diet, our work, our relationships, our leisure. Problems are to be identified as early as possible, risks minimised, and difficulties avoided. For every inconvenience, there is now an app, a self-help book, an expert, or an educational programme.
Even happiness has become a task to be performed as efficiently as possible.
But what happens if we actually succeed?
What happens when life really does run smoothly? When nobody demands anything of us, no difficulties arise, and we are completely free to do whatever we please?
Perhaps exactly what happened to me on the third day of my holiday.
We begin looking for a problem.
Of course, nobody seriously wants to become ill, lose their job, or face an existential crisis. Nobody needs problems like those. And obviously, there is a difference between being stuck in commuter traffic every morning and voluntarily setting off on a leisurely drive. Someone who has to ride a motorcycle to work every day may regard the very same journey as a tiresome obligation that someone else considers the highlight of their Sunday afternoon. What matters is not merely what we do, but whether we have to do it or choose to do it.
Yet between existential hardship and an existence entirely free of resistance lies an enormous territory in which life actually unfolds.
Apparently, we need not only security but resistance. Not only solutions but occasional difficulties. Not only peace and quiet but something that demands our attention and compels us to act.
Perhaps this is where our modern conception of the good life goes wrong. We tend to regard problems as disturbances of an otherwise ideal condition. Yet some problems may be precisely what makes that condition worth experiencing.
Consider people who have achieved everything materially. They own houses, cars, money, and every comfort life has to offer. They no longer have to worry about their livelihood. And yet some of them remain dissatisfied, bored, or deeply unhappy. Of course, this doesn't mean that wealth causes unhappiness. But the absence of difficulties clearly doesn't guarantee a fulfilling life either.
Perhaps the opposite is sometimes true. Perhaps a life in which nothing ever needs to be overcome eventually becomes a problem in its own right.
As a social worker, I find this thought rather interesting. A considerable part of our professional activity consists of eliminating difficulties, removing obstacles, and helping people achieve a reasonably orderly existence. Much of this is necessary and worthwhile. But perhaps we should occasionally remember that human beings are not exclusively creatures who wish to be liberated from problems.
They are also creatures who want to solve them.
And sometimes even creatures who have to invent a few for themselves.
A life without any friction whatsoever might not be paradise, but a very comfortable form of boredom. We would finally have achieved everything we had ever dreamed of, only to discover that we didn't have much use for the result.
Pascal would probably explain that we were running away from ourselves. Dostoevsky would likely expect us to break something sooner or later, out of sheer defiance.
I would probably just get into my car.
I no longer remember exactly which lake in Germany I had originally intended to visit.
But I remember the traffic jam.
It was the highlight of my day.