"The delicious does not stay delicious forever." A saying (17:28)
From the episode
- The first law: decrease. Life is built on decrease. A good evening with a friend ends, a trip ends, a post ends, a match or a film ends.
- Even what lasts, fades. You can own a house for 30 years, but is your delight in it in the fourth year what it was in the first?
- The waterfall. Visitors from the dry Riyadh climate stop the car at the first waterfall in Europe and take photos. On the second day they do not get out, on the third they glance at it, on the fourth they do not even point it out: they are used to it.
- The second law: conflict. It is the human lot to live in conflict. The first event on earth was one: Cain killing his brother Abel.
- Everywhere. States, companies, water resources, colleagues informing on each other to the manager.
- Even in families. He received a message from a man saying his greatest enemy in life is his own father, and letters from daughters blaming their mothers for ruining them.
- And in marriage. Conflict with one's wife is natural: two people sharing food, sleep, car and travel will run out of pleasant topics and reach the provoking ones.
- Two natures. In his view God placed jealousy in a woman's nature and an inclination towards women in a man's, which he must restrain.
- His advice. When each spouse makes allowance for the other's nature, disputes between them fall greatly.
The idea, explained
Why the waterfall stops being amazing
Psychologists call the first law hedonic adaptation: we get used to good things, and the pleasure they give fades back towards our usual level. In a classic study, lottery winners were not much happier than others a while after their win, and they enjoyed everyday pleasures less (Brickman, Coates & Janoff-Bulman, 1978). The waterfall on day four is the same waterfall; you are the one who changed.
Adaptation works on bad things too, which is the hopeful half of the law: people usually adjust to losses better than they predict.
Living with recurring conflict
The second law is not a counsel of despair. Marriage researchers find that most recurring disagreements between couples are "perpetual": rooted in differences of temperament that will not go away, so the aim is to manage them with understanding rather than to win (The Gottman Institute). His advice, to make allowance for the other person's nature, points the same way.
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Key terms
Decrease (naqs) · Conflict (sira') · Hedonic adaptation · Perpetual problems.