On a Haply Occasion in the Coffee Shop
Sunday, March 1, 2026↗ Read the original entry, in Syd's own high-context words
For the record
Today I sat in a coffee shop, worked on my laptop, and watched the women who came in. I did not approach any of them and I did not look away. I noticed the feeling, enjoyed it, and let it be. This is the practice I have decided to call cheeky revel. I am dating my progress from today, and I would like it noted that this is practice and not simply an afternoon I would have enjoyed regardless.
I want to record this plainly, because it matters to me. I was at the café with my laptop, doing the things I like — reading, tinkering, typing. There is a real immediacy to it: the keys, the trackpad, the screen. I am several sentences into an account of a breakthrough, and so far the event is that I used a laptop in a café.
Women came and went, as they do. In the ordinary way I would have spent that energy on a fantasy, or told myself firmly not to look. I did neither. I let the energy arrive and channelled it — by which I mean I kept enjoying it, quietly, without acting on it — and the room seemed to open up. The light warmed. The separation eased. I felt very good. (The energy was, to be exact, about the women. But that is incidental. The point is what I did with it, which was nothing.)
I looked up from the screen. A man with an e-reader. A man with a notebook. A family with two dogs. Two calm baristas. I felt a kinship with all of them. I am aware the forum says a report like this is just a description of a good mood.1 It was a good mood. I do not see the problem.
Mostly I felt that I had become the naive version of myself, the one before the hurt, with very little left to hide. I want to be careful here. I am not claiming enlightenment, and I am certainly not claiming "actual freedom" — I have no interest in that. I am claiming that I felt good, reliably, and that I expect to keep feeling good. A single good afternoon has become a settled fact about who I am, and I have recorded it as one.
An older man walked past. A young woman ordered a drink. We exchanged a smile, completely unplanned.
She asked if the chair next to me was taken.
I am recording that here because it seems significant.
Claudiu put it this way on the forum:
Claudiu · forum"endorsing and revelling in 'good' feelings with their pleasant/positive hedonic tone, and mistaking this for the felicitous and innocuous enjoyment and appreciation of being alive."
I have read this several times. He is describing someone who enjoys good feelings and calls that the practice. That is what I do, and it works, so I think he has accidentally described the method correctly. I appreciate the contribution.