Everyday use is a partial destruction that secretly pleases us.

Evidence

Moreover many kinds of appropriative conduct have a destructive structure along with other structures. To utilize is to use. In making use of my bicycle, I use it up—wear it out; that is, continuous appropriative creation is marked by a partial destruction. This wear can cause distress for strictly practical reasons, but in the majority of cases it brings a secret joy, almost like the joy of possession; this is because it is coming from us—we are consuming. It should be noted that the word “consume” holds the double meaning of an appropriative destruction and an alimentary enjoyment. To consume is to annihilate and it is to eat; it is to destroy by incorporating into oneself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1377

Categorization

• DEFINE: Unpacks ‘consume’ as simultaneously eat and destroy, a genuinely illuminating double meaning.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s material on adornment and material culture; also to Heidegger’s Zeug/tool-being analysis. — connects to: Innocuous everyday pleasures secretly affirm the damaged world they claim to escape — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 21
• ADDENDUM: The ‘creation-destruction’ of the bicycle burning out under use parallels the grafting essay’s theme of living infrastructure that is both used and transformed by its user.

Broader Connections

• Innocuous everyday pleasures secretly affirm the damaged world they claim to escape #expands (0.92) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 21