Hirayama likes his routine. The protagonist of Wim Wenders’ transcendent new film Perfect days wakes up every morning and follows the same ritual. He makes his bed, trims his mustache, shaves, waters his saplings and gets a can of coffee from a vending machine just outside his apartment before getting into a small blue van to work as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo.
On the way to work, he puts a cassette in his cassette player and listens to a range of popular musicians – from Lou Reed to Van Morrison, from Nina Simone to the Animals. After his shift, he sits alone in a park with his milkshake and sandwich, taking a picture of the trees and sky.
The narrator by Martin Amis in London fields said: “Who else but Tolstoy really made happiness swing on the page?” Wenders really makes the happiness appear on screen Perfect days. And the reason Hirayama is often so happy – why he breaks into smiles so easily and charmingly throughout the film – is the sense of limited routine in his life.
Too much choice is not good. The anxious person is the one who doesn’t know what to do because he can do so many things. The neurotic individual is paralyzed by the feeling that he cannot make the right decision because there is always another available to him. The seemingly limitless possibilities that dating apps and social media offer us haven’t made us more satisfied; it has only strengthened our desire.
The happiest I have been in my adult life was during the first Covid lockdown and when I left social media for three months. The first lockdown was a time of great confusion. But I gave myself a structure that more than supported me: it made me radiantly satisfied. From daily jogging in a nearby park to an allotted time to read books and watch movies, I found purpose in doing what I loved without the unsettling feeling of missing out on other things.
When I left social media for a long time, I focused on the things that mattered to me, rather than allowing my brain to depend on the frenzy of online algorithms. I recently told a young woman that I was a fan of her once-active Twitter account. To which she replied, “That’s not a good thing; If I tweet, it means I’m not feeling well.”
Combining physical activity with routine is optimal for improving one’s mental well-being. David Beckham practices yoga every day to cope with the stress of being David Beckham. A recent study published in the British medical journal analyzed more than 14,000 people from more than 200 studies and found that exercise is twice as effective as antidepressants in the treatment of depression.
The plea for more routine is not the desire for a return to the past: the world with basic technology, no smartphones and only three channels on TV. That will lead to a different kind of dissatisfaction. It is difficult to convey how useful a Deliveroo or an Uber can be in a time of great inconvenience. Dating apps have been bad for many, but they have also led to fulfilling relationships. From Amazon Prime to Netflix, the streaming platforms constantly feed me; I can rent almost any movie in the world on YouTube in 30 seconds.
Too much compulsion is more boring than happy, exciting instead of ecstatic. But a life without any form of routine or ritual is doomed to misery. We should not even consider these two things as incompatible: the bon vivant is often the most diligent in shaping her life. Every pleasure connoisseur is disciplined about what he wants and ruthless about what he doesn’t want.
Compared to many writers of his generation, the American novelist John Updike led a very sunny life. But what distinguished him most was his cheerful work ethic – novels, short stories, book reviews, essays. He wasn’t tormented by something as banal as writer’s block.
Updike left New York City in his 20s to raise his family in a New England town. He didn’t drink much; he was not a dilettante. He was a child of the Great Depression. He developed a writing routine and stuck to it. He lived like a happy monk.
And that also applies to Hirayama. He embodies what is now called “monk mode”: focusing on activities and tasks without the distraction of social media sites and other addictive technology platforms. He even has a stupid phone.
But Perfect days is not fantasy. The film dramatizes the fact that even the perfect routine is not a panacea to cure emotional turbulence; Sadness is an inevitable part of being human. And the sad parts of the film are all the more poignant for breaking through such a beautiful foundation of joy.
Hirayama lives alone, but describing him as a loner is not entirely accurate. After work he goes to the same small restaurant near the ticket counter of an underground train station and is served by the same exuberant man. On weekends he goes to the same bar and is served by the same flirty woman. This is evident from a longitudinal study by Harvard, published in 2017 the key to happiness his close relationships. We all have families, but not all of us have close relationships.
Liz Mineo summarized the research for the Harvard Gazette: “Marital relationships, more than money or fame,” she wrote, “are what keep people happy throughout their lives… Those bonds protect people from life’s dissatisfaction, help slow mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long-term and happier lives than social class, IQ or even genes.”
Close relationships are based on shared rituals, a shared language, a shared code. Intimacy comes from habit. To maximize happiness in this age of choice, we need to inject more routine into our lives. We should all strive to be happy monks.