#383: The Pumpkin Patch
Slowing down our experience of an object
Experiences not things. That seems to be the trend these days. Don’t grab some lunch; experience your food in an elaborately decorated venue, and then later post the photos online for others to experience too.
Like most of the UK, apparently, I went pumpkin picking this year. The prime example of such an experience, extending the traditional Halloween pumpkin carving into something even more instagrammable.
Instead of picking up a pumpkin from a harshly lit supermarket aisle, wrap up in your finest autumnal gear and select one under beautiful skies. The orange of the pumpkins pops against green fields. Whether you want a cute photo of your child sat on a huge pumpkin, or to display your new camel-coloured coat and burnt orange sweater, the pumpkin patch is the place to be.
The pumpkin patch goes one step further, though, because instead of being about the “experience” rather than the “thing”, it is about both. As you breathe fresh air and peruse rows of glowing orbs, you end up thinking in depth about these objects. Look at the smooth skin on that one, the nobbles on this one. This one is ivory. This one a deeper orange. Shifting this decision away from the sterile supermarket, you become lost and intensely involved in your opinions about pumpkins. Though you might expect to be distracted by the need to instagram the experience, it is easy, instead, to find yourself fully engrossed with the subject of your visit.
Colours, weights, touch, shape: all basic and usually automatic observations about an object. At the pumpkin patch, these observations become slowed down and heightened. A criteria forms, and you begin to hold each object against them. This pumpkin is nice because it is rounded, whereas this one ticks the box of having an even colour.
I then took the pumpkin home and enjoyed the object further, scooping out its flesh, carving in a face, and eating some of its insides. So much attention was paid to the allocation, the decoration, and the consumption of this object. I wonder what it would be like to slow down all of our interactions this much. To truly “experience” each object at its source and in its use.
Perhaps, if we are cynical, these experiences are about image, about social media audiences, about paying more for the privilege of picking something yourself (rather than for someone to do this labour for you). Or perhaps, we are being lovingly duped into a slow and appreciative process. Our desire to jump onto a trend is warmly shuffled into a truly attentive and present experience.
Either way, I shall be going to the pumpkin patch again.
