The Sunday Papers - In Praise of Coffee Edition

Life is full of little rituals, some more significant than others. Take that morning cup of coffee, for example. On weekdays, my car practically drives to Starbucks by itself, and when I walk into the store even the intoxicating smell of the espresso awakens my senses and gets me ready for the day.

On weekends, it’s the sound of the coffee maker, and then the “cling, cling, cling” of the spoon in the mug as my wife offers me that first cup of homemade brew as I open the Sunday Papers. The first sip satisfies not only my need for a morning wake-up, but a need to keep to a time-honored ritual that keeps order and normalcy in my life.

Apparently I am not the only person who feels this way, not by a long shot. In a great Op-Ed piece in Saturday’s NY Times entitled “One Latte, Hold The Milk”, (sorry, on this one you need to be a NY Times subscriber) the author Stacy Schiff puts it in an even greater ritualistic context, believing that “darkness shrouded the Earth until someone thought to brew coffee at breakfast, at which time the stupor lifted, the neurons engaged and the Enlightenment dawned”.

Wow. Did Stacy ingest a bit too much caffeine herself when she wrote that? Perhaps not, because she makes a pretty darn good argument to support that initial theory- here’s more:

Tea is said to have fueled the Industrial Revolution; caffeine has been credited with modern physics and chemistry. “A mathematician,” the prolific, nonsleeping Paul Erdos liked to say, “is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.” Small wonder then that the elixir of efficiency and inspiration should prove to be the blogger’s best friend, the CrackBerry’s companion, the spirit of social networking.

Think about that one - and how “social” places like coffee bars (led by the soon-to-be ubiquitous Starbucks) have taken over the public congregation spots from the corner taverns. Why? We prefer to have our brains “switched on” than “switched off”.

Says Schiff, “Caffeine sparks imagination, stimulates conversation, accelerates thought, enhances mood, increases endurance and activates memory. It allows us to beat the clock; how anyone managed to build a cathedral before the advent of espresso is beyond me.”

Is there a cost to this continual chemical assault on the brain - while thankfully nothing appears to be conclusively proven from a health risk standpoint, the effect on the tempo and tenor of our society in undeniable - heightened emotions, more impatience, and relentless needs for mental stimulation (I agree with Schiff that 24-hour cable news channels couldn’t have been invented without coffee).

Schiff quotes Balzac on why we’re willing to put up with these negatives - “One wants everything to proceed with the speed of ideas; one becomes brusque and ill tempered about nothing.”

So we keep drinking coffee, and it keeps fueling the world’s rapid evolution to a truly “wired” society - in more ways than one.

As for me, I just reduce this all back to that cup of coffee sitting in front of me, still producing that irresistible aroma, and calling me to partake in what I affectionately call the “Daily Grind”. With this ritual in progress and the day still ahead of me, I take one more sip and break into a broad smile, as I read the final quote in the article from Jeff Bezos from Amazon.com:

“In Seattle you haven’t had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it’s running.”

Howard, are you listening?