Recently, John and I traveled to France. We hopped around the Cote d’Azur and explored as many cities as we could. There were spritzes; there were spritzes by the water. There were meals so impossibly French that it pained us for them to be over. Our adventure was predictably delightful, but one highlight surprised me: The scorched espresso.
At some point every afternoon, John and I agreed in one-word exchanges that it was time for a boost. We made our way to a nearby cafe and sat down, and when someone appeared at our table, I ordered two espressos in slow and careful French. Tiny porcelain cups on saucers always arrived quickly, with sugar and spoons. Sometimes tiny cookies were perched beside the cups.
Early in our trip we ordered espresso when we needed a pause. But it did not take long to become accustomed to the ritual. We began to look forward to our new habit, and not just for the wave of energy bestowed on us by shots of caffeine. Inevitably our cafe stops brought good conversation and excellent people watching—a chance to take in our surroundings. Put another way, French cafes helped us slow down and savor each moment we were living.
Savor we did, but after a few days we came to understand that whatever espresso we ordered at French cafes would not be very good. By bougie American standards, that is. It was John who pointed out that our espresso was often burned. The espresso is better in Italy, he mused. I was so taken with my surroundings that I had not even noticed.
At a few cafes, our espresso was bitter and unapproachable enough to require extra sugar, stirred in like a prayer. Most of the time we drank something passable but not special. After more than a week in France, we were at a fancy hotel in Saint-Raphaël when delicious espresso finally arrived at our table. It was far better than any others we had encountered and came with a perfect little treat. That espresso revealed to me how right John had been.
The espresso we ordered in France was often scorched.
The realization that most of our espresso in France was not very good did not stop me from ordering more. My commitment to the ritual only increased after I registered the mediocre nature of our drinks. Sometimes our espresso was fine, and other times it was horrible. But when our espresso was scorched, I loved it anyway.
No matter how our espresso tasted in France, sitting at a tiny cafe table in seats strategically aimed towards the sidewalk opened a window into our lives. It asked us to sit down and look around. Neither of us used our phones on the trip, so we peered more deeply into each other and the world. We did not want to miss a thing. As we clanked miniature spoons against tiny cups, we reveled in the pleasure of being alive.
European cafe culture reveals a lot that is lacking here at home. When it is time for an afternoon boost in the States, we order coffee to go. We rush. We tap a card. We wait, standing, scrolling Instagram with our heads down, necks bent in unnatural directions towards the floor. When our name is called by a barista, we lurch forward and mumble thanks as we reach for another piece of plastic we know the ocean cannot stand.
Our culture teaches us that it is imperative to seek the best. We want the best of the best. The best coffee and the best cocktails. We read ratings and reviews before deciding where to stop. We plan itineraries around which establishments earn more stars than others. Entire companies are sustained by managing apps and websites meant to help us identify the best in a sea of probably-just-okay.
When it comes to espresso, optimized American coffee culture tells us our coffee beans should be grown in particular places and brewed at highly specific temperatures. They should be expensive. The fussier, the better. The more uptight the brewing, the tastier it will be. Yet despite all our effort to obtain perfect coffee, we seldom sit down in good company to actually enjoy it.
By seeking the best, we have completely missed the point.
*****
Jia Tolentino’s iconic essay “Always be optimizing,” published in Trick Mirror in 2019 and adapted here for The Guardian, is always worth revisiting and, four years later, more relevant than ever. In it she examines how the modern woman is trained to optimize herself with expensive exercise classes, fancy hair treatments, elaborate skin care regimens, and on top of all that, Botox and fillers. To achieve the status of “ideal woman,” one must check the boxes and do so at a frenetic pace.
Tolentino points out that “the term ‘optimize’ was used for the first time the way we currently use it, in economics, in the mid 19th century.” The term was developed by William Stanley Jevons in The Theory of Political Economy, she offers, and it refers to satisfying “our wants to the utmost with the least effort — to procure the greatest amount of what is desirable at the expense of the least that is undesirable — in other words, to maximize pleasure, is the problem of economics.”
Maximizing pleasure through economics sounds suspicious to me, yet this is undeniably the American Way. We like to say that money cannot buy happiness, but our actions prove we believe it can. In her essay, Tolentino focuses this dynamic on the illusion of the “ideal woman,” but the idea of obtaining pleasure through optimized experience permeates every aspect of our lives.
Our ratings-obsessed culture engrains in us a hidden belief that we might somehow be happier if we drink perfectly brewed coffee, find the best cocktail, or eat the quintessential farm-to-table meal. This makes sense to me to a degree. All of us would like to receive the most we can in exchange for our hard-earned money, which never seems quite enough and is constantly falling prey to inflation and criminally priced education and healthcare.
For the 140 million poor and low-income people in the United States, the thought of paying seven dollars for the fanciest coffee in town with the most stars is laughable. Federal minimum wage has not been raised in 14 years, so while our economy restructured itself during a global pandemic to benefit the very rich to an even greater degree, many American people are still making under eight dollars an hour. They work 40 hours a week yet cannot afford housing, which proves that working a full-time job is not enough to meet basic needs and lift yourself out of poverty in this country. Our society, despite its desire to optimize everything for those who can afford it, is designed to systematically oppress the masses rather than lift them up.
This cultural obsession with finding the best espresso, and other idealized experiences for those with money to buy them, has created a crisis in values. We value exquisitely brewed beans, babied at perfect temperatures in overpriced Chemex coffeemakers, accepted with our single cell-phone-free hands amidst frenetic over-scheduling more than we value slowing down in good company to relish the present moment for all it’s worth. We prioritize machine-like perfection over beauty, which let us not forget, is often forged by imperfection itself. We forget the pleasure of simply existing amidst our quest of striving for more.
*****
Despite the problems obsessive optimization brings, it is true that I will not stop participating in the culture it creates. I will continue referring to ratings to select hotels or determine where I can find the best veterinary care. Stars may help me decide where to invest in a nice meal while traveling or point me towards something culturally relevant in a city I do not know. It would be impossible to remove myself from the system we have built, which is so pervasive, so gripped in the intoxicating allure of capitalism and the urge to seek more, better, best—always demanding maximum impact—that it shapes our lives to their very core.
Perhaps the least I can do to resist this culture is strengthen my awareness, noting that scorched espresso served in porcelain cups without regard for the American Grind, for example, has a stronger effect on my happiness than idealized espresso served in a paper cup where there is nowhere to sit, nothing to see, and no friend in sight. I must reject the notion that joy is related to having the best and dig my heels in to recognize that pleasure and perfection cannot coexist.
There is joy to be found in a delicious drink, but what I want is a deeper joy that no drink can hold.
Removing personal barriers to joy is hard enough, but denying the urge to perfect myself is even more difficult than resisting the urge to seek idealized espresso. It seems that if I am a good enough student, friend, and citizen, then I might uncover the affection I need. Yet always looking for some future, better version of me only pushes aside the happiness that is available right now. Finding deep personal joy requires the daunting work of grappling with our innermost wounds, but removing systemic barriers to joy for the masses is even harder.
The right to happiness was stated in the Declaration of Independence as a fundamental principle on which the United States of America was founded, yet we have gotten happiness all wrong. Our system prevents good, hardworking people from obtaining the absolute basics in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And if primary requirements like safety, housing, and nourishment cannot be met, then the happiness that could theoretically stem from love, belonging, and self-actualization are entirely out of reach.
This is a problem bigger than espresso, and it will require all of us to resist and demand better—not just for ourselves, but for those who are pushed to the margins and do not have the luxury of thinking about sidewalk cafes. One of us cannot truly move forward unless we all move forward together.
In the meantime, it is important to notice what happiness is and what it is not. On this point we must be absolutely clear. Once we recognize joy, we can prioritize it for ourselves and simultaneously insist that in one of the richest countries in the world, it must be accessible for everyone.
For me happiness means giving myself and others permission to slow down and bask in long, spacious moments at sidewalk cafes. To relish each other’s presence and allow our lives to be animated by beauty and pleasure. To create environments in which joy is a possibility for all people. To that end, I’ll take another scorched espresso.
Between you and me—
Hello and happy summer! Can you believe that WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE will celebrate its *fourth birthday* next month? That’s four years of asking life’s big questions together in this space. I continue to be honored that you join me. Thank you especially for remaining attentive throughout the changes this past year brought. I am as devoted to the big questions as ever.
Recently John was named music director of the Spartanburg Philharmonic, and if you have been here for a while, you know we have invested a lot of faith and dedication into making moments like this one reality. There is perhaps no greater feeling than the one that says you weren’t crazy, you were right to make the choices you did, it’s all working out despite the moments you weren’t sure. I am so proud of him and the generous approach he takes to artistry.
This summer I am working with the United Nations Environmental Programme’s Faith for Earth Coalition, which organizes to mobilize the support of inter-religious faith leaders and faith organizations to support the UN’s climate agenda. As we saw in the Northeast this week, the climate crisis is here, and I am always looking for ways to respond.
On the topic of reframing and reclaiming joy, I give you poet Mary Ruefle. Her book Madness, Rack, and Honey offers a “Short Lecture on Your Own Happiness.” In it she writes, “You know how to write poetry, it is all you need to be happy, but you will not be happy, you will be miserable, thinking you need so many other things, and in years and years of misery you have only one thing, as poets, to look forward to, the day you will not want what you haven’t got, the thing you have got is poetry, let nothing cheat, steal, or deflect you from it, even poetry itself. Why are you sitting there? You should have fled before I finished the first sentence.”
For our purposes you can delete “writing poetry” and insert whatever it is that makes your soul sing.
I’m wishing you joy this week, whether your espresso is burned or not. Take care out there!
The audio version of WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is available on Spotify, Apple, Substack, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. Can you help us grow? Send this to a friend and ask them to subscribe. Share it on Instagram and tag @lauren_only. If you enjoy this work, please consider becoming a sponsor, which compensates Lauren for her time and keeps this publication free for all. Thank you so much for being here and for your contributions.
I really loved this piece - thank you for sharing. It inspired me to go find a new coffee shop in New York (without looking at ratings!!). I stumbled upon a cute cafe on a long walk and ordered an espresso for here, vs grabbing it to go and rushing home to do Sunday chores. It’s always so interesting what slowing down can do for our nervous systems.