Feeding

God, I hate addictions. Ok, wait, I don't hate addictions, I hate being addicted. Addictions are usually pretty pleasant. It's when you can't get enough of it that things start becoming a little messy.

I've been distracting myself from the pull of one addiction by feeding another. The one I'm feeding is some random television serial from China about the eight pieces of a dragon in the sky. I cannot tell you how much the monk in that serial irritates me. Honestly, who on earth is that indecisive? Indecision is a remarkably infuriating trait. I cannot stand it. Decisions are there to be dealt with. Make a choice and live with it.

Ok, I realise that's pretty hypocritical coming from me, considering my complete failure to make certain decisions. But that's a decision too, to let the decision rest. In the face of a lack of sufficient information, it hardly seems appropriate to do anything hastily. Note that I classify my own feelings on the matter under the category of information that feeds into the decision. If I cannot be certain as to my desires on the matter, I think it's a little much to ask me to choose something.

So the question arises of how I can be uncertain of my own desires? Aren't desires emotional responses? To a large extent, they are. Either you want something or you do not. There is the initial emotional response, which involves, I suppose you can refer to it as a gut feeling about something. Later, as more information about the subject is obtained, whether via external input or due to internal evaluation of previous input, a more processed response becomes possible. Still, it is entirely likely that the first gut feeling lingers. At this point, if the processed response varies from the gut feeling, then there will be another evaluation of the two. Thus the processed response evolves. Willpower simply refers to the decision as to which of the emotional responses a person selects to follow.

It is worth noting that a logical thought is in many ways also an emotional response. It is an expression of the desire to choose an action that is congruent with whatever logical end that is relevant. The end point of logic is always a simple emotional desire to which can hardly be assigned any reason. These may include survival, wealth, family, and so on. These are all essentially desires that have no grounding internally in anything but a pure want. What is the reason, after all, that any person does not desire to die? It is a reflexive desire. If we wish to elaborate upon it, we can cite an infinite number of reasons, from religion to dependents, but when it comes to the point of decision, it is an instinct. Perhaps the instinct is grounded in some biological failsafe that encourages the species to not commit collective suicide, but as an individual dealing with himself or herself, it is no more than the reflex of an insect defending itself.

Alright, I can barely type. So I'll cut this off. Some other time.

Sick as a dog

I was going to start in on emotions and their expression, but I've decided that I don't deal well enough with being sick to bother. So maybe later.

Things breaking

Things have been in a slight state of flux about me recently. Some things break, never to be replaced. Some things are formed out of bits and pieces that have been cobbled together painstakingly over time. Creative destruction, I smirk and toss off. To find the most efficient state, there has to be constant breaking and forming. Only when the perfect combination is found can it last. Except there is no such thing, really. Actually, that is not quite true. Something can be perfect, but by definition, perfection can only be for a particular set of circumstances. Taking everything into consideration, be it time, people, location, or any number of factors, a thing can be perfect. This perfection cannot last, cannot linger, for it is fleeting, less than fleeting. At one point in reality, a thing is perfect. At any other point, something is different, and that perfect thing, because it is perfect only for first point, cannot be perfect for the new point. For if that thing were also perfect at that new point, then everything would have to be the same for the two points, and they would be the same point.

So if there happened to be a perfect thing, it is beyond our comprehension, for how can we understand something that is completely still? By the very act of thinking about a point in reality, we are altering it, for our thoughts are part of reality as well. Perhaps this is why perfection is such an impossible thing to attain. Perhaps I am just rambling.

I have finally figured out my problem. Here's the deal. I am dissatisfied. This dissatisfication is not what you might imagine. For most people, to be dissatisfied is to lack something, to want something, but do not and perhaps cannot have it. My problem runs a little deeper than that. I find that I am lacking. The problem is that I do not know what it is.

Ah, I can almost hear you thinking that this is nothing more than some angsty fellow who thinks himself lost and brooding. Not quite. I do not know what it is I lack, because I know that it does not exist. There is nothing that will make me satisfied. Oh, certainly I can be satisfied in certain ways, but a complete satiation of my self is quite impossible. I know that there is nothing, because there really is no reason for me to be satisfied. Why should I be, when there is nothing I want in the world? I do not truly desire anything, for I know that nothing is worth desiring, for nothing can be worth desiring. Ok, circular reasoning, I'll admit. But this is the fact. Everything is so fleeting, so lacking in permanence, that I cannot admit to centering myself about anything. In one of my earlier ruminations on this weblog, I went through the reason that Life is boring. It is boring because there is no such thing as a permanent interest. Given that there is no thing that can claim to be permanent in nature, then how can such impermanence give me any fulfilment? There is no fulfilment to be had in this world, unless you are willing to shorten your sight, to remove your glasses or contact lenses and live with myopia. Perfect eyesight? Blind yourself, that you may not see the pointless nature of life's journey.

Think about it. Is there any pursuit that does not provide nothing more than ephemeral achievement? There is a reason I swallow my emotions whole. Letting them rule me may bring some fleeting happiness, but I cannot see any permanence. Chewing them up and spitting them out may allow some satisfaction, but that would be giving in to spite. I push people away because I see only the brief nature of things. I admit that it saddens me to be proven right when the emotion, the attachment, fades without my feeding it. If I do not put anything into a connection, and it collapses, then it cannot have been permanent, can it? If the attachment was to what I was putting out, then it must fail, for the only thing that has any constancy over any period of time is me, not my actions. My efforts will flag sometimes, and if I am not the point, but only the expression, then all must fail.

Impossible? Perhaps. So I withdraw, become standoffish, and watch as my predictions come true. I can perceive no other way. I am not depressed, in need of help, angsty. I am just unable to think my way out of this. I have thought up my conundrum and cannot find my way out. I may desire affection, may seek it out from time to time, but in the end, I always back off, saying it doesn't make sense. What people don't understand is that for me, it can never make sense. It is not that compatibility is so impossible, it is that I cannot accept something that I know will break eventually.