Behavioralists have measured that Americans feel the pain of loss over twice as strongly as they enjoythepleasureof gain (from the Nobel-winning prospect theory).
The road petered out in an area with little valleys, ridges, hills, and peaks, but it was not the contours ofthe land that created the uneven surface but, rather, the layers of things that had been thrown away: everything that the consumerist city had used up and expelled so that it could immediately enjoythepleasureof handling new things had ended up in this unprepossessing neighborhood.
David Astor was in the tradition ofthe gifted English amateur, able to enjoythe gentlemanly pleasureof an absorbing and expensive hobby because ofthe efforts of his forebears.