Daily Archives: Oct 29, 2010

Possessions Diminished by Possession

So why men stray?

Biological need for more sex, sexual variety and opportunistic sex. To boost ego to feel special. For the thrill of the chase. To escape the inevitable existential futility, angst and terror.

Read something from somewhere quoting a transgender man saying: “There’s a significant uptick in casual sex, a lowering of inhibitions, and far more interest in sexual variety…personally, I have noticed I have a new-found ability to completely divorce sexuality from emotional commitment.”

The genesis of love. Nietzsche delivers the cruelest analysis of the human emotion known as “love”. The German said love is born of egoism and actually “may be the most ingenuous expression of egoism”. Two main ingredients of love are desire and lust, which are always seeking after the new, as we tire of existing possessions and crave new attractions. “Possessions are generally diminished by possession.” Brilliantly brutal.

As Idiosyncratic as Fingerprints

Robert Burton called it “gut feeling” — “involuntary mental sensations that function independently of reason”. William James described it as “felt knowledge”, something extraordinarily difficult to be dislodged through rational arguments. I call it “intuitive knowledge”.

Cognitive scientists now seem to believe the bulk of our thoughts originate in the areas of the brain inaccessible to conscious introspection. The trick in Chris Nolan’s “Inception” — the planting of an idea in human mind — if it can ever work, we have to sort out where to plant it first. Thoughts arrive in consciousness already coloured with inherent bias. Our perceptions are filtered through our genetic predispositions, biological differences and idiosyncratic life experiences. Your red is not my red. These differences extend to the very building blocks of thoughts. Thinking may be as idiosyncratic as fingerprints.

Illusion is also a form of perception. If you think you can actually see the world as it is, you are in illusion.

Certainty is not biologically possible. We must learn to tolerate the unpleasantness of uncertainty.