We are, as a people, rather fond of imagining that stuff can make us happy. The objects and doodads and gadgets and trifles of our choking consumer cornucopia are all around us, each promising that perfect satisfaction is just one more purchase away. This is, of course, just completely wrong. The hunger for stuff just makes us fill our lives with clutter and stress. Happiness is utterly not dependent on things, and the having of things, and the desire for things. This is, without question, True.
But what I found delightful wasn't related to better consuming data from the interwebs. It was a little bit of extruded plastic, about eight bucks worth. It's just a big plastic valve, and it attaches to the vent-tube of our electric clothes dryer. In winter, you switch it to the "in" position, and all that heated and humidified air that you used to be pouring outside gets vented into your home. It's such a simple thing, just a humble, practical and unassuming little object.
Yet as I ran loads of laundry this week, and the always-chilly basement grew comfortably warm and filled with the scent of clean linen, I found myself inexplicably pleased with it, more so than with the vastly more pricey electronic doodads that shipped along with it. It eliminated wastefulness. It made things better.
There is pleasure in such things, I think.