Sugar for the Soul

The train was speeding north as it came to a halt. In the distance, the mountain line recedes at the horizon. The setting sun coats the automn trees with hinges of a dark ochre. It wasn’t the first time that the train stopped for no apparent reason, and the passengers were getting restless.

Sitting across each other, two travelers started exchanging banalities about the train company. An older woman, with a newspaper half-unfolded on her lap:

‒ It wouldn’t be a real train travel if it were on time.

She is addressing a younger woman, hair tied neatly in the back and a half-closed laptop in front of her:

‒ I guess not.
‒ They could at least tell us what is going on.
‒ They always do it, no?
‒ Oh, not always. It used to be that the train conductors just told you they are doing all they can, and ask you not to get out of the train. It was the standard announcement they have to repeat every time.

The older woman nods, approving with what she just said.

‒ And now, they at least try to communicate with a little bit of thickness.
‒ A little bit of thickness?

She has an accent.

‒ Sorry, it’s been years, but I still don’t speak the language very well. Thickness as in… as in something that I can work with, something concrete. Something that helps me know if I will catch my connection, or if I might as well take a nap.
‒ That’s a very important question!

The younger woman, as she smiles laughingly. She continues:

‒ Sometimes the conductor makes some jokes. They don’t always do it, but when they do, it’s entertaining, even though the situation is serious. I like it.
‒ I think serious information should always be communicated seriously.
‒ But it’s also boring.
‒ It cannot really be boring if it has substance.

The younger woman smiles again:

‒ There are lots of things I have read at university and have been told have substance. But they’re still boring.
‒ What do they make you read at university?

It’s not clear whether the older woman went to university herself.

‒ I don’t even remember. That’s the problem!
‒ And you are sure you were always paying attention?
‒ Yes, yes, I do. Of course. I took notes.

The younger woman pauses, as the older woman slightly raises her eyebrows.

‒ Ah, yes, there was one. Something about the history of sieges in the Middle Ages, I think.
‒ Surely there was some substance there.
‒ Was there? If I don’t remember it?
‒ If someone else remembers, it does matter.
‒ I wish you could have read it. You would understand it is possible that no one remembers because it was so boring. So flat. And if no one remembers, then it didn’t matter, I think.

She pauses.

‒ On the other hand, I have professors that are very entertaining.
‒ But do you remember that they are entertaining, or do you remember what they told you?

The younger woman smiles.

‒ Yes, sure, I remember that they were entertaining.
‒ So this is my problem, you see. That this entertainment wraps anything, substance or no substance, into a nice shiny packaging, and it becomes all that matters. When I turn on my TV these days, it’s only flashy colors.
‒ It was better when the government dictated in black and white?
‒ Maybe not.

The older woman looks at the flashy colors across the newspaper on her lap, and continues.

‒ I have the feeling that this is just like candy for children. These days, they wrap them in all of these shiny plastics, and God knows how hard it is for me to get my grandchildren away from them. It does not matter if I tell them that it’s bad for them.
‒ You think if you wrapped broccoli in shiny plastic, they would eat it?

The older woman laughs.

‒ I wish!

She carries on, more seriously.

‒ I wish they knew that this broccoli is much better for them.

The younger woman gestures at the newspaper.

‒ And you think you would read this kind of stuff if it was all in black and white without pictures?
‒ No, no. But I don’t read it for substance, I read it for entertainment.
‒ You also read the advertisement for entertainment?
‒ Sometimes, yes.
‒ But advertisement is like sugar for the soul. It’s full of shiny promise and empty inside.
‒ You know, I have lived long enough to know that a promise is always empty inside.
‒ People have promised me things that have come true. And I relied on these things to come true. For me, they had substance.

They both stay silent for a bit. The younger woman shrugs.

‒ So we cannot have substance and entertainment at the same time?
‒ Not for serious things, I don’t think so.
‒ I think we can have both.

The older woman stares out the window in disbelief. The train is still not moving. The younger woman continues, slightly faster, trying to convince her neighbor.

‒ I think that entertainment is about making you think differently. Sure, it can be about not wanting to think about anything, like when people watch TV, and they forget about their lives and problems. But I think it can also be thinking about new things, and that these new things can last after the entertainment is over. For example, there are jokes that make you go “huh”, and you realize they are more than jokes.

The older woman remains quiet. Realizing she might have been a bit too passionate, the younger woman slows down.

‒ You think the train conductor should not make jokes?
‒ I think that when some people make jokes, they make the content seem less serious.
‒ That’s true. That’s a problem. Maybe the best jokes are the ones that are true, then.
‒ They definitely are the sharpest.
‒ And their form as jokes makes them look so innocent. That’s what I like about nice form, it almost takes you by surprise to get to the point.

The voice of the conductor erupts from the train’s loudspeakers.

‒ Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid I come with bad news: we don’t know what’s holding us back.

A short pause. He continues.

‒ I guess it’s just one of these evenings.

They look at each other and smile.

Originally, I wanted to write about different styles of presenting academic research. I was struck by the contrast between this presentation and that presentation: different styles, neighboring topic. Intuitively, I could imagine the latter would be more appealing. Reasonably, I find more substance in the former.

This got me thinking about how the presentation of things affects their perception, particularly in the field of academic research, which prides itself of only focusing on content, and not form. But I quickly realized that there was not much to say: the catchy, by definition, catches one’s attention more easily, and academic research, like all social activity, has its styles. Perhaps a more interesting question is when form takes over substance. Substance should be examined across forms.

But I also really wanted to write a dialogue in a train. I was reading Plato’s dialogues recently, and I found the simplicity, and the intimacy, of the form particularly compelling. So I wanted to try as well, curious to see if you could have everyday strangers slowly develop the stems of a philosophical argument. And I set it in the train because that’s a recurring scene in the best novels (the russian ones), and because it is still, today, one of the few places in which strangers talk to each other.

We are moving out of Berlin in two days, and it seems that the era of those long-distances I used to do by myself is slowly coming to and end. So I wanted to write down as well, in a certain way. As I write, I’m on the last of these trains. We left Karlsruhe five hours ago, just arrived at Spandau, and are about to make our way through the city. Zoologischer Garten and its neons, Hauptbahnhof and its verticality, all the way along Stralauer Allee, over Holzmarkt and onto Ostbahnhof. We pass by the S-Bahn platforms, slowly. I love Berlin because it is a capital city where trains do not stop. It is a city which respects movement, and gives it space. It is not exactly the same as being empty, or cold, even though it might feel like it the first few years. I rarely listened to music in the train, but gazing out the window at those streets I came to know so well, late into the night, anonymous traveler coming home, I put on earphones.