Museums as Places of Pleasure

When we asked our toddler if he wanted to go to the local science museum this weekend, he got really excited and said, “Yeah! We can press all the buttons!”

This kid knows what he loves.

It can be harder for adults to do that, to listen to that little voice that tells us how we *actually* want to engage with our environments.

Museums can be such good places to practice getting in touch with pleasure. So many of us have internalized messages about how we ‘should’ behave in those spaces, which makes museums wonderful training grounds to practice navigating that pull between what we feel like we should be doing and what we actually want to do.

Next time you find yourself in a museum, check in with yourself to figure out what would feel good. And then do it*.

(* Unless that means touching the objects. Or bothering other people. Don’t do that.)

If you, like my son, want to go mainly for the buttons on the interactive exhibits and elevators, that’s 100% valid.

If you want to look only for the color green in paintings, go for it.

If you want play moody piano music on your headphones and think your thoughts in a pretty place, that sounds fun.

If you want to go only for the fancy café, more power to you.

If you want to go to an exhibition and read all the wall labels and learn something new… guess what, that’s good, too!

Because here’s the thing: you can make your own rules about how you pay attention. In museums, in your life. And it is such a delicious, powerful feeling to know how you actually want to engage with what’s around you, and let yourself do it.