I'd love to get a coffee

Deconstructing the tanhā of coffee

I was getting ready to take the dog to the beach and I thought, I could stop and get a coffee on the way, that sure would be nice.

Coffee in Japan is AMAZING! Photo by the author

I’d love to get a coffee.

From the old man yells at cloud department: when in the fuck did people start thinking it’s OK to say “Can I get a coffee?” as a way to order a coffee—or anything? For fuck’s sake, well, can you? I mean, I know, I know, language changes (and I like that it does!), but really, “can I get” sounds idiotic, depersonalizing, and also simply impolite. Please stop this.

Back to the coffee, and the question of why would I love to get a coffee?

I want to deconstruct my thirst, longing, desire, and craving for coffee (Of course, I’m drinking coffee right now, while I write this!), because I know from personal experience that whenever this grasping tanhā arises, it leads to a directly-corresponding dissatisfaction (dukkha, in Buddhist terms). Either I want it and don’t have it, or I want it and then I have it—and then don’t have it any longer.

Whether I get the coffee or not, I don’t have coffee. Maybe I had coffee for a few moments, but I remain unchanged by coffee except for the brief and transitory experience of drinking coffee—and if drinking coffee is part of who I am, then I have to drink coffee to be myself. While this may be what coffee wants as a master plant, it’s not who I am, or desireable, or even possible to “have to” drink coffee to be myself.

So, what part of that 'getting a coffee' experience, if any, do I actually want?

Is it buying something?

Yes—and as soon as I picture the steps of the process, especially as mediated by today’s all-electronic, touchless, and entirely impersonal transaction landscape, any imagined joy or satisfaction in the process of making a purchase melts away.

Is it the experience of stopping into a pleasant café?

I’ve had favorite coffee shops, and visiting them has often been a great pleasure. Farley’s in Potrero Hill, The North End Cafe on Grant Street, the place that a guy named Omar used to run on Hayes, up near the panhandle. Trouble Coffee out on Judah, back when we still had fog [And no, for fucks’s sake, the fog is not called “Karl.” It never was. Please stop this. If you’re a pilot or a meterologist, feel free to call it a marine layer, but otherwise, fog will do just fine.] . There was a place called Abraço in the East Village—before it got bigger and moved across the street, it was a just a little window, to go shots only, Brazilian style. I loved the simple, colorful, warm, down-to-earth vibe, the hint of someplace faraway. I hadn’t yet been to Brazil in those days. I went to New York regularly on business, sometimes I’d stay somewhere swanky like the Soho Grand, sometimes I’d stay at the Chelsea, and sometimes I’d crash on a friend’s couch on 7^th and A, right down the block from where King Tut’s used to be. Rolling out in the late morning after what at the time felt like a night on the town but in retrospect was usually ugly, desperate, dirty, and sad, I’d be so hung over that even at 10:30am I was still barely standing, coughing up dust and batting my hands at the flotsam clogging my forebrain, eyes squinted nearly shut at the familiar city cacophony, I was heartened and gratified to the point of overflowing with a compressed, corrupted version of joy at seeing the little neon red sign approach as I crossed 1^st Ave, knowing—or feeling—that I would find there the minute but very necessary fortification of the delicious double macchiato that was required to make my way into the reality of my day.

I loved all of these places, but these days the simple truth is that I don’t have a local café that holds much charm for me. Two of the coffee shops nearby happen to both be owned by the same local brand. I have nothing against the success of the local entrepreneurs [https://www.equatorcoffees.com/pages/about] that brought them to the point of having several “stores” as they’re known in the parlance. I just don’t love the vibe. They feel impersonal, and operate mostly as pick-up points for ppl who have placed onl ordrs. Ppl who just wnt a coffee! on thr wy to wrk or the gym or to pick up the kdz or whatever (or is it whatever?!)—I mean, here I am, I’d love to get a coffee too!—and, for the sake of convenience, and sving oh so precious time! order in the app, are notified by text, and pick their “drink” up at the counter without any exchange of words. There’s one other place but they’re slow, the lighting is bad, and the atmosphere is less Insta, more plus-sized-pajama-pants—also, not for me.

There’s no life in these nearby places, for me—and that’s fine—so, no, the stopping in no longer holds any special meaning.

Is it the caffeine then? My body sure feels that I'll get something magic from the ’two fused rings [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Chemistry]’ of pyrimidinedione and imidazole, and, my God, the zwitterionic resonance that hums from within each crispy little molecule—I mean, obviously—but again, once I take a moment to examine that belief, it evaporates just like the gently hissing cloud of steam that escapes when the barista cleans the foaming wand. As much as my body reminds me of the sense-memory of a caffeine buzz, I know from actual experience just how fleeting that fun little trip is, and that in fact, these days, I don’t even like the feeling of a strong caffeine high anyhow, so it’s half-caf [It’s just a little bit hilarious that the American propensity to make everything bigger, that resulted in all coffee “drinks” here being made with a double shot, also makes it possible—and necessary!—to specify “half-caf” as my preference, something that would be unecessary—and impossible—with a traditional single-shot espresso or cappuccino.] for me, most of the time.

Whether or not I end up “getting” a coffee, the by-now inevitable conclusion of this little bit of addiction algebra is that instead of feeling like a lukewarm dog turd on a Tuesday morning sidewalk, badly in need of a pick-me-up just to get my day going, I feel great, and that nothing—not even coffee—can improve on that. What comes up for me as remembered bolidy desire to “get coffee” when I’m on the way out is just the muscle memory of a momentary antidote to so many mega-hungover mornings and, more generally, the murmuring echo of a univeral desire for more, more, more [Billy Idol, Rebel Yell

https://genius.com/Billy-idol-rebel-yell-lyrics]. Getting coffee is a pathetically sublimated yell for more life, more experience, more breath, one more moment in the sun—a desire that cannot be satisfied by more anything—not even more coffee.

I’ve written elsewhere about how terminally desperate I’ve felt at times, not knowing what to do with even the very next minute—a desperation that could be salved by realizing that I could go get a coffee. I’d be up in the tower there on Kansas Street, pacing and muttering—and then the lightbulb would go on, I’d put on a cleaner set of clothes, paste my hair down, and find my way down to Farley’s, where I would take great comfort in the dark pool framed by the white ceramic cup, hot, oily, shimmering, a tiny mirror that absorbed all light, like a black hole. “Coffee” was distraction, respite, and relief—only for an hour or so, but often long enough to bring something other than my own barren inner landscape into focus.

It occurs to me that the impulse to ‘get a cup of coffee' now as a latent attempt to layer in some sort of micro-improvement to my day can be reinterpreted as a message arising from what is now my very real satisfaction with my actual, current state of being. My wish for coffee used to be a wish for anything but this, and now it’s more like: more of this! And since I know that it won’t actually do anything to make more of me, it’s becomes a reminder, and a way of more deeply appreciating the fact that I don’t need to change my actual state at all. I used to want to change everything—and now I don’t want to change anything.

After the purchase, the café, and the caffeine all vaporize—I come to the possibility that maybe my underlying, actual, physical desire is just to have a hot drink. I mean, it would be nice to have a hot drink, and of course I could make myself a cup of tea (or hot water? really? no, that would be too fucking sad.)—but by the time I've gotten to that point in my thought process, the entire of chain of wanting collapses beyond the event horizon into nothingness.

How silly would I feel going out of my way to stop at a coffee shop just to give myself the small, faint, false luxury of a $6 cup of coffee, knowing that despite the impulse that still arises I won’t actually enjoy any part of that process?

I’m content with how I'm feeling already, so why seek to change it?

Besides, I already had my morning coffee at home, at 6:30am, when I really do need—ahem—enjoy it.

I don't need to get a coffee…

…but I am going to make myself another cup of coffee.

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Further Reading

• My own writing: A vision of hell, and a warning • Acquiring the skills of growth (and “Change Everything”) • Nothing said “home” to me more than an empty house • My memoir: An Ordinary Disaster

• Elias Dakwar, The Captive Imagination

• Adi Jaffe, The Abstinence Myth

• Michael Easter, Scarcity Brain

Questions for you

1. What’s your own relationship with coffee?

2. Is there anything for which you experience a grapsing thirst, longing, desire, or craving? Are you familiar with the sense of disappointment or dissatisfaction that comes along with that desire?

3. Hot and black, right?

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