You Don’t Need More Content, You Need More Experiences

This holiday season, many of us have enjoyed Christmas or Hannukah songs, movies, and stories. It is the most wonderful time of the year because of its focus on repeated and shared experiences, rather than the endless drive for the new and distracting/entertaining.

I recently returned home for the holidays and suggested to my father that we watch Home Alone (because as a child, I apparently looked just like Macaulay Culkin). Immediately I felt familiarity and comfort.

As we watched the movie on VHS, I noticed the graphics were grainy yet had a certain life to them. The soundtrack was stellar and had the nuance only a highly skilled orchestra and conductor could provide. And the storytelling – especially scenes like Kevin in the church with “Old Man” Marley or Kevin’s mom talking parenthood with Gus Polinski – led me to contemplate certain areas of my life currently undergoing growth.

Engaging in this folklore-of-sorts was much more rewarding than a typical doomscroll session I may have otherwise occupied my time with. The attention to detail, the depth of story and artistry provided, the life lessons embedded, and the ability to share space with another for an extended time all provided for a much better use of time and attention.

Repeated Experience and Ritual

Part of the reason the experience was something deeper than mere entertainment was that we intentionally sat and watched this video together, all the way through, with a shared, albeit unspoken, dedication to do so in a focused manner. And we have done so many years, if not every year.

Usually when we think of ritual, we might think of a church service or a structured devotional practice. But repeated experiences of all kinds can actually be legitimate rituals that help you feel like yourself and more connected to your community. In the age of self-help being pitched as a remedy to modern problems, self-help alone cannot undo the challenges brought on by individualistic society. We need to stay engaged in community and family.

Rituals are guideposts and connecting points. They are places you have been before and may return to again. Each time you engage with a fitting repeated action, it’s an opportunity to reflect on who you were when you last participated and who you are now. How your connection to others has evolved. And how your relation to the ritual has changed or stayed the same. And these aren’t necessarily conscious actions, often they just happen when you set up the right conditions.

As an example, when you go see a favorite artist’s live show numerous times, those experiences can become guideposts. You start to remember who you were with at earlier shows, what the songs meant to you then and what they mean to you now. Perhaps you have a different job or an overall feeling of more (or less) wellbeing now.

Repeated Story and Folklore

In the modern age of self-help, a lot of conversation around repeated story has to do with the stories we have repeatedly told ourselves that aren’t helpful. But what about the ones that are helpful? And what about the stories that aren’t in our head but rather shared in community, family or in collective consciousness?

Folklore usually conjures up images of Aesop’s fables, or ancient epics like The Odyssey. But in the modern era, folklore can include shows like Adventure Time, Christmas movies, or iconic concert tours like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. In Pittsburgh, the infamous annual Kenney Chesney show creates local folklore.

The definition can be expanded further to include viral TED Talks, stories from the town or city you live in, and shared memories made in your friend group.

Just as with the repeated rituals above, repeating stories presents the opportunity for growth and reflection in one experience. This can be intrapersonal or interpersonal.

Healing Through Repeated Actions

It is often recommended that spiritual practices be done repeatedly and consistently to gain the benefits of the practice. A practitioner actually develops a relationship to the practice itself by doing this, knowing how to approach it, when and why. Sometimes it can even feel like the practice itself has a say in how a practitioner approaches it.

The same can really be said of any repeated action, which is why it’s so important and valuable to nurture good, repeated actions. Regular activities that get you into flow states like hanging with good friends at the bar weekly (and responsibly) or watching Christmas movies yearly are two examples.

Why Repeated Experiences are Essential and Content is Optional

For the sake of this blog, we can regard repeated experiences as a deepening process, and content consumption as a broadening process.

How good it feels to broaden in perspective and to see and learn new things! Content expands the mind and offers access to information or entertainment a user otherwise may have never seen. However, when this is done repeatedly in a chase for dopamine, content begins to occupy the spaces in the mind where repeated experiences (and the folklore they give rise to) might live, without providing much added depth. Perhaps it can provide a temporary relief from stress at best.

Back to my Home Alone example. I had to use the restroom during the movie so excused myself. Everything was good so far! But then, coming back, I took out my phone and began to scroll. I felt myself tense up and leave the flow state I had just been in while enjoying the movie. And with life being so busy at work and in general throughout the holiday season, it better to stay unwound. I put the phone down and luckily could reopen to the expansive feeling. This is not always the case. Times of immersion allow us to return to ourselves and remember what is most important to us.

Conclusion

It’s easy to consume content. While it’s also easy to enjoy positive rituals and repeated experiences, they don’t always involve instant gratification. It is worth it to continue to pursue repeated and shared experiences that engage the mind, bring about new folklore, and foster interpersonal connection.

I hope you all have a great holiday season and Happy New Year!

A view of Rattlesnake Trail - Sabino Canyon, Tucson, AZ.