The Guilt Of Not watching a Western Classic — “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly”
By: Nirjhor Hasan
Tags: Life Lessons, Behaviour, Personal Growth, Consumer Behavior, Philosophy

The Guilt Of Not watching a Western Classic — “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly”

Is the guilt worth it?

Photo by Manuel Nägeli on Unsplash

July 6th, 2020 marked the end of the Legendary Italian Music Maestro Ennio Morricone, musician who mesmerized us by bringing the infectious orchestral performance like in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, The Hateful Eight & many more. The news came to me while reading a piece by Chris Nashwatty, titled “Ennio Morricone’s music transformed the way we experience film”. While reading it, I was introduced to the awed composition “The ecstasy of Gold”. During my watch of the composition on YouTube, the composition certainly increased my heartbeat, but how can I not talk about the tension in the wonderful epileptic finale shot of Sergio Leone in “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly”. It was both my ears & my eyes that were constantly hooked to the screen.

After watching the performance, the thought that came into my mind was — “it was absolutely worth experiencing”. Something else made me rethink. Being a western classic, it certainly intrigued me, but there was also a personal selection of pending movie watchlist staring at me with anguish for keeping them waiting. After a confusing state of mild stress, I just calmed myself down & decided not to watch the movie for the time being. The thrilling experience of the ending shot was satisfactory enough for me. During the temporary stress state, it did cross my mind — “Am I depriving myself by not choosing to watch a western classic?”

Having enthusiasm for exploring art & culture, it would not be a crime to feel disheartened not to experience such classics. Surprisingly & pleasantly, I didn’t feel dissatisfied at all. Why? What came in my mind was, with time, it’s a continuous facture that more classics like the Sergio’s will keep emerging. I won’t be able to experience it all. After all, my 70-year-old life (maybe at most, I might live) is in a rumble with hundreds; hell even thousands of years of literary pieces. So, why take in unnecessary despair? Let’s see, what my journey lets me explore. The more, the merrier! Now, such despair because of the abundance! Isn’t this a cliché now?

In the dominant capitalistic era, it's normal that we are being presented with an abundance of options. It certainly seems a winner for consumers. Right?! Now, let’s play a story in our mind. We have taken our kid to the town’s biggest candy store. A man with a colorful cheery attire is welcoming you both. Entering the store, the kid is overwhelmed with joy. Unfortunately, not all of us are Scrooge McDuck who used to swim in the pool of gold coins. The parent says to choose any one or two candy. Having so many favorites, he gets frustrated & eventually settles for two & leaves the store with a dose of anxiety. Such irony is no different for all of us. In today’s age, the possibilities are endless in every aspect. We are leading comparatively a better life than before. But that does not necessarily mean, we are happier. It was well explained by Rainer Greifeneder & his colleagues. What Rainer explained is that although people may prefer to have many options to choose from, it was observed that when a consumer is offered, eventually their choice of the product leads to dissatisfaction. They have mentioned 3 reasons here:

1. More the options are suggested, more the options go into the list of rejection. Thus leading to losing more opportunity cost

2. To avail, an option from larger alternatives leads to incurring more time & money investment for searching the viable option.

3. Thirdly, there is a constant state of uncertainty whether we have made the right choice or not.

The confusion becomes more visible when the options available are very similar in nature. Such convolution is defined as Choice complexity. It's true that having capitalistic competition leads to the creation of THE ideal product. This leads to the question, is such idealism worth the paranoia?

It seems that in the era of option abundance should have given us humans more FREEDOM. Apparently, it’s not. I think digging deep into the term ‘Freedom’ might give us more insight. From the notion of normative economists & social theorists, Freedom is defined as “The possibility of an agent for an action without any constraints”. But like theories in physics & chemistry, it sounds like a utopic possibility. & as for “Freedom of choice” is making choice without any constraints.

In reality, the limitations will be there; be it availability, resource, etc. In today’s world with the availability of options, we are certainly provided with better alternatives to select. But as explained before, the objective of freedom — satisfaction & peace. It isn’t there. Let’s look at another perspective: a pinch of existentialist notion. According to their belief, Free will leads to agony as I am the sole responsible for my decisions. In that case, I will attain freedom, if I accept that I am responsible for the actions, for myself, & my outcome. They are stretching the sense of responsibility so much that they are denoting freedom & responsibility go side by side. Putting this into perspective might take away the “no constraints” terminology, but this limitation certainly helps to keep us aligned with our objective of freedom.

So far, we explored what may be causing the dissatisfaction due to choice abundance. Now, let’s look into what is the internal inertia that is causing the problem. A more suitable way is to start off by a quotation of one of the Stoic Maestro Marcus Aurelius,

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it

As a decision-maker, it's our perception of choosing that‘s distressing us. The research has observed that Satisfaction is not determined by the quality itself, it’s our level of expectations. According to the expectancy disconfirmation model, when a product performs as per our expectation, we, as consumers, don’t give any thought about it. Only when it exceeds our expectation, we experience a satisfactory delight. If the product does not perform as per our anticipation, the dissatisfaction starts crawling in. So, if we can shift our anticipation level, this will result in an increased level of satisfaction. As discussed before, opportunity cost, choice uncertainty & additional investment due to choice abundance do cost us some form of satisfaction. But it’s not only limited to the external factors.

There are some internal factors that are also burdening the cost of satisfaction. Our Social structure is also adding to the burden by raising our expectations & creating a capitalistic culture of comparison. We are in the prime era of competition. Stating the current timeline as the prime may be proved wrong in the coming future. Because with the progression of time, the extent of competition is continuously on the rise. The inherence of competition is continually growing our expectation in every sphere of life. Our parents want us to be the best student in childhood & teen years. And when the adulthood hits, we are created with an imaginary expectation of being the best in our work-life. It doesn’t even stop there. In our retirement, we are creating a void expectation that we should sum up enough money so that we can drink glasses of Margaritas besides our swimming pool inside the luxurious 5-star like home or cottage. With such social pressure, we are forcing ourselves to not just ask but demand the best. Hell, it doesn’t even stop there.

We are exceeding our boundary of expectation so that we have a competitive advantage as well; regardless of the fact is it good enough for us or not? We should definitely have a wine-cellar & it has to be better than our next-door neighbors. I don’t know about distress, but I am definitely sweating with all the void expectations which I have just typed. What’s worse or dangerous is that the adaptation to the trend. We are so much drowned with such competition or unnecessary comparison, and because of that, “the new bar” is becoming the new normal. We might buy the legendary Nokia 3310 out of nostalgia. But how CAN EVEN WE LIVE WITHOUT THE TOP-NOTCH SMARTPHONE in another pocket? Well, my question is — Wasn’t making calls the ultimate purpose of a phone?

So, will we be free from this madness? Will we attain FREEDOM & achieve happiness & satisfaction?

Now for the continuation of previous Marcus Aurelius's quote,

and this you have the power to revoke at any moment

Power to revoke what? Revoke the estimation, the anticipation. With my rebellion, I am still not ashamed; but remorseful to express that absolute repulsion of pleasurable desires might be farfetched for me as of now (there is an unconscious dream of attaining nirvana). I believe this might resonate with many voices. Absolution can certainly be a life dream, but can’t we start with the small steps? Reasoning with our impulses can be a good start. If we moderate our impulses & focus on the utilitarian direction for choice, we might be able to dig our way towards freedom like Andy Dufresne.

Research suggests, during our assortment, having a clear goal gives us a specific direction which eventually helps to rationalize our choice. Setting a clear goal helps us to prioritize, the need which is necessitated to be fulfilled & what opportunity cost can be given up. This will ultimately result in an appropriate selection by acknowledging our restraints. To understand better, let’s treat ourselves with a slice of economics & the slice is “The Law of Diminishing returns”. The Law of diminishing returns denotes that after reaching an optimal point of yield, additional input will result in a detrimental lower yield.

To simplify, the road to something good is a straight & smooth one, but to achieve flawlessness you have to climb a mountain. If we have a closer self-observation while making choices, we’ll be able to find out that it’s not the perfect that fulfills our unmet need, rather the good product is fair enough to meet the needs. But because of the blinding need by perfection, we often don’t realize the immense amount of cost, we might need to sacrifice to chase the perfect. Not having the realization, makes us beat ourselves up for not being able to achieve the perfect because of restraints. What we need to ask ourselves is that is it really worth it? Which path of thought is better? “I have to get it, Couldn’t help myself”, or “I just wasted a lot of money for the sheer personal unnecessary pleasure”.

Photo by Kuma Kum on Unsplash

“I teach suffering, its origin, cessation & its path”- It took a Prince to permanently leave his kingdom, his family & all his belongings; his society defined glorified life, to attain this knowledge - to the path of salvation; absolute freedom from suffering. It’s Prince Siddhartha’s transformation into ‘The Buddha’ that has discovered how & why the self-conscience is tangled with the suffering & It is expressed in the four noble truths — the essence of teachings of Buddha.

What Buddha’s life discovered is that it's our constant nagging for desires & cravings that gives rise to the suffering. Even if our expectations are fulfilled, we are always in search of some new craving; leading to a constant state of dissatisfaction. & the path to liberation is letting go off of the desires or cravings. In the world of abundance, constant cravings will always be on the lookout for us to make us feel that whatever we chose is not perfect; not satisfactory. In the end, It's up to us. We have to decide that what unnecessary desires, pleasure, cravings are needed to let go off. Only then, we might be able to discover what we truly need, want & desire. Maybe we might not attain nirvana, but there will be a hope for Satisfaction & Peace.