Daniel's Comfort 'Foods'

I think it’s a universal experience to be browsing through Netflix or a similar streaming service; scanning through the hundreds of tv shows, films and documentaries; pausing occasionally and thinking “oh so-and-so said this was really good…”; looking at all the things you should watch…before ultimately deciding, “nah I’ll just watch that episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Friends I’ve seen a million times before” because you know what you’re going to get, its familiar and nice and comforting.
Whether its tv, movies or music it’s really important to have these old faithful’s you can rely on to help you get through tough days, especially at the moment.

I’ve given a way a couple of mine in the intro there (although Friends less so now since I get angry anytime Ross is on screen), but a key one I’ve been relying on lately is my “dad music” classic rock and metal. For me that mainly means AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Jimi Hendrix. I think I find this music comforting in part because it’s what I listened to as a teenager so it naturally makes me nostalgic and reminiscent. But there’s also something just enjoyable about the simplicity of it, especially AC/DC. It’s not complex, it’s not deep, the lyrics aren’t allegorical, they aren’t trying to plumb the depths of the human experience. It’s just screeching vocals, wailing guitars and music to turn your brain off, and have some beers to. 

“That’s not a song! Real songs are about deals with the devil, far-off lands,
and where you’d find smoke in relation to water” Otto, The Simpsons

As you can probably guess from the quote, another thing I’ve been relying on is The Simpsons (thank god for Disney+). My girlfriend and I are both huge Simpsons fans (to the extent that we regularly quiz each other to see who has the superior knowledge). So having all the episodes there to just have on while we’re having dinner or playing Animal Crossing or after collapsing down on the couch after a hard day of work has been amazing. And that’s something that’s key about these comfort “foods” as well, they don’t even have to be the focus of attention and in fact often aren’t.

More often than not they’re just on in the background just acting as familiar white noise. 
I think it’s tempting to almost feel bad about relying on these things and I think over-reliance on these comforts is a bad thing. To better yourself as a person we want to seek out new things and new experiences and obviously turning your brain off to the troubles of the world a lot is a dangerous and at times even selfish habit. But when the world’s in shambles, lots of us are out of work, people are becoming more divided its great to have something you know you can rely on, that’ll put a smile on your face and let you forget about all that crap, just for a moment.

Cheers

Daniel


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