No hugging. No learning.
That was the unofficial motto of Seinfeld, the sitcom that TV Guide once rated simply as the best television series ever.
After its 1989 pilot, Seinfeld ran for nine seasons – 172 episodes in all, most of them 22 minutes plus commercials. Today the show lives on in endless reruns, introducing yet another generation to the quirkiness of its four main characters.
The show was dreamed up by stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld (who played himself) and his friend Larry David, a gruff, neurotic fellow comic who was portrayed by Jason Alexander as Jerry’s buddy George Costanza.
David and Seinfeld, sitting in a coffee shop in Manhattan in the late 80s, suddenly realized something: Life’s little irritations can be incredibly funny.
As Jennifer Keishin Armstrong details in her book Seinfeldia, their conversations “about nothing” would evolve into obsessively close observations of the annoyances, frustrations, and pull-out-your-hair idiocies of modern urban life.
At first the show merely commented upon culture. Then it began to shape culture.
America’s Friday morning water cooler conversations increasingly revolved around the misadventures of Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine the night before.
If you know the Soup Nazi, what happened to the Junior Mint, the strange way Elaine dances, who won The Contest, and where Jerry’s girlfriend’s toothbrush ended up, you’re in the Seinfeldia crowd.
At first NBC didn’t know if it wanted to take a chance on an offbeat show like Seinfeld. In 1998, when an exhausted Jerry concluded it was time to shut things down, they couldn’t imagine living without it.
That year Seinfeld was being paid $1 million an episode. When he broke the news to Jack Welch, the chairman of GE, which owned NBC, the CEO took him to a corner and wrote something on a slip of paper, then showed it to Jerry. It was an offer of $5 million per show. Seinfeld still walked away.
The cantankerous Larry David wrote a majority of the show’s episodes. They came from the storehouse of his own disappointments and exasperations.
From the beginning, the show’s four primary characters were – there’s no other way to put it – unlikeable. Classically, a television show had always aimed to create characters that an audience could adore, or boo, or cheer on to greater things.
David would have none of that.
The lead characters would be petty and cynical. There would be no happy endings, no contrived sentimentality, and no personal growth. Cast members even wore T-shirts with David’s credo: No hugging, no learning.
That’s Real Life a la Seinfeld.
In Real Life a la You and Me, however, annoyances, frustrations, and irritations don’t have to define our existence.
In truth, we’re not particularly likeable, either. The people who know us best can probably tell a few stories that would embarrass us to no end if they became plotlines for a TV show.
But the good news is that our eccentricities and self-centeredness do not have to sabotage all of our relationships.
Dr. Suzanne Degges-White, writing a few years ago in Psychology Today, suggests that our most important relationships can be kept in good working order if we make up our minds to excel at acceptance, support, and commitment – three strategies that rarely saw the light of day on Seinfeld.
Here’s how the apostle Paul puts it in Colossians 3:13 (The Message): “Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.”
Relational commitment is the determination to focus on the positive traits of your friend, co-worker, or partner, rather than obsessing about the negative. This is rarely something that we will feel like doing. But it’s a settled attitude that we can choose, no matter how we feel. Such a decision helps soothe our spirits when life becomes exasperating.
So what’s the biggest obstacle to making that happen?
We get tired. We run out of gas. Being an imperfect person called to love another imperfect person feels like a drag.
It seems so much easier to retreat to the same old gripe sessions with the same disillusioned friends at the same old coffee shop.
But as followers of Jesus – those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells – our call is to be representatives of God’s new creation. We’ve been blessed with new purpose, new hope, and a new capacity to draw close to others instead of running in the other direction.
And if we take that seriously, you know exactly what that means:
Here’s to a weekend of hugging and learning.
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