The Challenge

It is with a sincere sense of urgency that I take it upon myself to call to your attention a matter which I feel insists on immediate resolution.  Firstly, permit me if you will, a few moments in which to paint you a picture so that you may come to fully comprehend, as I have, the grave nature of what I am about to discuss. 

In my explanation I hope that nothing shall be left wanting, and that by the time I have finished there be no remaining doubt in the reader’s mind as to my position and the consequences proposed herein.

Consider that man is an animal like no other - an animal so deeply entrenched in the language with which he describes himself and the world around him, that his perception has become inseparable from words themselves.  These intangible abstractions are the hidden forces that drive the human machine to action, and give purpose and meaning to an otherwise lifeless and unresponsive existence. 

Words are our filter through which we view the world, and as such, great responsibility must be exercised when using them.  The reckless manner in which words are commonly expunged from the human oesophagus is characteristic of a far less considerate and deliberate attempt at communication than any use of language that will suffice here. 

Objectivity provides us with the knowledge that any attributes we may assign to a particular article or phenomenon are not innate properties of the thing itself, but moreover, they serve as a greater insight into the workings of the mind that ascribes such qualities. 

By way of example, consider the immediate emotional associations that spring forth when recollecting the image of a sky laden with thick cumulonimbus clouds.  For many, the thought of an occluded sun seems entirely inseparable from the ideas of depression, lethargy, demotivation, and ennui. 

Counter to these impermanent labels that appear to naturally adhere to the notion of overcast skies, we can see how they might begin to come unstuck if we were to imagine ourselves as inhabitants of an almost perpetually arid land, one in which dark skies would signal the welcome possibility of rain.  In such a scenario it seems inevitable that we would have come to associate the same phenomenon with an entirely different set of feelings and words with which to describe them. 

In light of this observation we may go so far as to conclude that by changing the language we implement, we could in turn alter our standard viewpoint in addition to our emotional responses. 

We each have strange relationships with our responsibilities, particularly those that we perceive as being bestowed on us against our preferences and which are not directly necessary for our continued survival.  When we unconsciously label something as being a means to an end, it cements its position as an unavoidable obstacle, something that we might often resent, perhaps due to some inability to accept the inescapable.

The most universally detested feature of life, rued by man, woman and child alike has to be this thing called ‘work’, and more specifically, that which we refer to as our ‘job’. 

In the French language the expression ‘devoir quelque chose á quelqu’un ‘ means ‘to owe somebody something’, while the term ‘devoir’ refers to a piece of homework.  Here, in plain sight, you can see the concept of debt inextricably linked to the notion of work. 

In the ancestral environment, all work would have been directly correlated to the survival of the individual and their kin, and if any concept of ‘work’ was to exist in the mind of a hunter-gatherer type it would have had very different connotations to those that exist today, and not because of any obvious differences between primitive and modern languages and the brains that implement them.

Where work in itself was once the ‘debt’ that must be paid in order to live, it has now become a more abstract intercessor in the chain of survival and prosperity.  Work simply bestows credit upon us: credit which can be exchanged for goods and services, credit that we may never actually see except as numbers on a screen.  Now a different kind of ‘debt’ also exists, one which if paid off, will not feed, clothe, or protect us from the elements, but one which exists solely as a bi-product of a society in which people are separated from reality by their jobs. 

Ironically enough, jobs have made it easier for us to neglect our survival-based responsibilities by virtue of their intermediary and often unpleasant nature.  It is relatively easy for Neanderthal man to go out and hunt when he gets hungry or becomes low on food, but by comparison it is much harder for modern man to extract his lifeless body from beneath the bedclothes in order to attend to his ‘duties’, duties that will no more feed him than the paper on which his earnings are printed will nourish his cells.  

Having a job indicates that one has submitted to external forces in order to achieve some greater good, but it tells nothing of the silent grudge that one is burdened with in the process.  To counteract the feelings of cognitive dissonance that accompany the reluctant acceptance of any profession, people have invented a myriad of ways to make-believe that it is their job that is important, and in the process they have confused the means with the ends.  This is what is referred to as a ‘lost purpose’.

When compiling a C.V we note our previous labours and provide a list of our past duties, with the intention of conveying to any potential employer how noble we were in fulfilling them and preserving the vision of our superiors.  The curriculum vitae is the soon-to-be-workingman’s opportunity to upset the balance between himself and those who administer responsibilities, by making words work for him, and by employing choice phrases. 

All of this should serve to demonstrate how strongly the aversion to jobs is embedded within the human psyche, and how much of a pivotal role words and associations play in shaping our perceptions.  It is with this in mind that we at last arrive at the crux of the problem which I have yet to illuminate, and is as follows. 

Once you accept the initial premise that words have very tangible effects on how we view life, and you also agree that for the most part the word ‘job’ has strong negative connotations for all those that use it, then it should logically follow that you also accept the position that we can no longer continue to refer to fellatio as ‘giving a blowjob’. 

For the time being we shall ignore the misnomer introduced by the prefix ‘blow’, which has no doubt led to much embarrassment the world over, and is wildly misleading when used as a purely descriptive and not euphemistic term. 

The idea of giving as discussed earlier is profoundly entwined with the concept of paying back a debt, which is emphasized even further by the addition of the word ‘job’.  And when viewed as a complete phrase it has the cumulative effect of dampening the metaphorical, and not euphemistic, spirits of the potential performer. 

There is an old, familiar saying intended to warn of the dangers one may encounter should he fail to maintain certain boundaries in life, that is along the lines of ‘never mix business and pleasure’.  This is exactly what the offending phrase does in the mind of the listener, and it does so in spades.  I must assert that ‘blowjobs’ be cast off into the domain and darkened bedrooms of those sadistic and masochistic folk, for whom such painful association and delegation of drudgery is appropriate.

The solution to our collective quandary is a simple one, made even simpler for you the reader, as prior to the writing of this essay, and over the course of many late nights spent experimenting by pure trial and error, I had already formulated a word-perfect replacement for the diabolical expression that we have all tolerated for far too long. 

At the heart of this campaign to reinvent the face of oral sex is my long-deliberated proposal to replace the aforementioned archaic saying with the expression ‘to take the suck challenge’, and the reasoning is thus:

Besides the two being almost exact opposites of one another, by utilising the expression ‘to take’ instead of ‘to give’, we are presented with a far more favourable set of connotations with which to draw from.  Challenges are exciting, and free from the weight of commitment or necessity, and the use of our novel phrase has the effect of spurring on the participant and casting them in the new role of competitor whose goal is no longer to simply get the work done or to pay off a debt, but to take on the challenge and win at all costs.

We must empower ourselves to break the restrictive shackles of language, and to escape from this hidden enslavement under which we all toil.  We must resign ourselves to never again under any circumstances, give or receive another blowjob.  Likewise, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by superficial accolades such as ‘employee of the month’, which only serve to keep us hopelessly caught in the illusion that our jobs are important. 

                                  

Now that I have put down the groundwork with this essay and its many elaborations, the real challenge of bringing this new phrase to the public awareness lies ahead, and is left for you to seize firmly with both hands and a youthful vigour.  So to you concerned and willing reader, I say this:

Will you take the challenge?

A Little Update

I began 2011 injured and out of action, not knowing at the time that I was destined to finish it in a similar state. 

After suffering a sprained ankle at the end of 2010 I was left to navigate the following months on crutches, remaining mostly confined to the house, and more specifically the couch.  I don’t recall how I whittled down the hours until I could walk and then finally resume training again, but it is safe to assume I went a little insane. 

No sooner had I returned to the gym that I re-injured what I believed to be one of my hip flexors which had been a problem the previous year.  I resigned myself to squatting deeper with lighter weights and devoting even more time to stretching, resting and remaining mobile.  My training around this time consisted of high rep goblet squats holding plates of up to 40kg on my chest, barbell hip thrusts, single leg band resisted back extensions, suitcase deadlifts and so on. 

Then suddenly one morning in late February I woke with the feeling that my eyes were crossed and was so dizzy that my stomach churned violently, unable to vomit anything up.  The dizziness subsided enough to let me sleep again until I was awoken much like before.  A short trip to the hospital revealed...nothing, only that the dizziness might be caused by an underlying inner ear infection.  At the time when this happened I was still in Finland, but a few months later I returned to London to unload all of my problems onto each of the general practitioners at my local surgery in succession. 

Every time I visited the doctor, my blood pressure was measured and found to be elevated, although initially I was reassured that this may simply be a reaction to the stress of being there.

After much stalling I was eventually prescribed medication to help combat the the dizzy spells which had made the precious months a blur of disorientating discomfort.  Due to protocol, I had to wait one month during which I would take the medication before I could be seen by a specialist.

Still none the wiser as to the cause of my vertigo, with my problems common knowledge between all four doctors, they decided to call a round table conference on my behalf.

The outcome of this meeting, besides making me feel special in some obscure way, was that it had been decided I would undergo a series of tests to hopefully shed some light on what may be behind my symptoms.

Lacking any definitive diagnosis outside of being labelled a young hypertensive, a number of tests later I am still no closer to being treated, let alone cured.  I have had a blood test, two urine tests and an ultrasound scan on my kidneys, I have worn a 24 hour blood pressure monitor on two different occasions, and lastly had an echocardiogram and worn a heart monitor for a further 24 hours. I am currently waiting to see a cardiologist next week. 

But as if all that wasn’t enough, as a precaution before being referred to a physiotherapist about my persistent hip flexor/leg pain, the doctor ordered an x-ray of the hip area.  A couple of weeks later I would be notified that a fracture was found on the right side of my hip near my pubis. 

I racked my brain but couldn’t recall any falls within the last year, which left me thinking that it’s likely I have been training with the fracture for some time, and may even have begun weightlifting after the fracture was originally incurred.

Cue more hospital visits and a second x-ray.  I was seen by a specialist in wrist fractures who pointed out that I have impingement in the hip due to the femoral head being convex instead of concave.  No mention of the fracture at all, but as I write this I am waiting to be seen by a specialist in hip fractures at the end of the month.

All these setbacks forced me to put any thoughts of training as far out of my mind as possible, so much so that I have sometimes thought that I will never train again, and have often felt like the fox in the story of the sour grapes.  Because it is not that I don’t wish to continue, it’s that it has been really difficult to adjust to having such a big part of my life pushed seemingly further and further away over the course of a year. 

But I am back to thinking about, writing and reading about training again when I’m not actively doing it.  Some might say I am ‘living it’, and after a period of almost two years I have just begun training rings and gymnastics conditioning again. 

Having gone from training rings only, to squatting heavy and rings conditioning at the same time, then to purely leg work, I look forward to a time when I’ll be able to do both again, although I am prepared for the possibility that I may not be able to incorporate leg/hip extension exercises into my routine until next year. 

Whether I undergo multiple surgeries this year, or whatever the outcome may be, I hope to return with just as much enthusiasm to become stronger than ever, but more importantly I just want to be able to move without fear again, to feel that same sense of freedom I have felt in the past, when running, jumping and climbing.

The Fallacy of Intelligent Design in Conspiracy Theories

It appears that good-to-do people are spreading misinformation via the accessibility of the internet, perpetuated by paranoid conspiracy theorists and others supposedly out in search of ‘the truth’, albeit one that confirms their beliefs in the best way possible.

I imagine that some of these people must have a chip in their shoulder, and feel that they are getting less than they deserve.  Such a belief might make it easier to spot corresponding theories, such as the idea that some ‘higher power’ (your parents, the police, the government, God) is pulling all the strings, and swinging things constantly out of your favour.  And when confirming your biases feels so good, all this information seems to come together to form some kind of clear image, like faces in rocks.

Just as it is easy to see intention and purpose where there is none, as in the case of intelligent design, the same mistakes in thinking may also be the basis for believing in conspiracy theories.  Instead of seeing a hand as something we simply use to pick up objects, purpose is wrongly attributed to it, and so we say (and think) that the purpose of hands is to pick up objects.  The difference may seem small, and some may see no difference at all, but it is a significant one. 

A system that results in discrimination against specific groups is very different from one that was actively designed to discriminate.  This is even more apparent when you consider that systems and organisations are inherently composed of individual parts and individuals, who are logically supposed to achieve the same ends.  A conspiracy on such a scale requires you to see an organisation as a well-defined whole, whose intended ends are malevolent.  If instead, you break a system down into its many parts, upon inspecting each individually it becomes increasingly difficult to find the intention.  The group or at least the majority of the group, must work collectively for the same purpose in order for there to be any tangible unified goal.  A few individuals out of hundreds or even thousands, who ‘conspire’ among themselves cannot be said to affect the overall purpose of the group, even though they may have considerable impact on the measurable outcomes of their collective.

In order to see a conspiracy it becomes necessary for you to view things in black and white, and to ignore or leave out any negative cases when looking for and summing up your ‘evidence’.  Instead of seeing honest people for example, as evidence that there is no conspiracy, they will be counted as rare exceptions, regardless of how many instances are found.

Scepticism is seen as belief system, like Christianity for example, whereby upon announcing your scepticism you have also unknowingly chosen a team, donned their colours, and separated yourself from the ‘opposition’. 

Being a sceptic is different from being a religious follower in that religion is mostly a system of beliefs, whereas scepticism is more the act of suspending belief.  In order to be a true sceptic you must have good reason for your disbelief, otherwise you are most likely just being contrary, and are in no better a position than someone who blindly believes.  Although there may be potential benefits to automatic contraryism, over the tendency to believe almost anything if it’s presented in a professional-style video, complete with well-chosen soundtrack and end credits.

Scepticism threatens to take the fun out of life and the mysteries people hold dear, by actually challenging those ideas, instead of worshipping them and rejoicing in the unknown.

Inevitability's Child

I don't believe in destiny or fate in the sense of there being a 'natural order' or things happening 'as they were meant to' due to some higher power for example.

What I do believe however, is that in theory everything could be predicted given sufficient prior information.  But the difficulty or possibility of obtaining this information would seem to be the primary obstacle to us performing these calculations, and as such there may be a significant amount of things we will never be in a position to predict. 

For example, the probability of tossing a coin and it landing on 'heads' is not really 50%, because if you design and build a coin-tossing machine you can have it land on the same side indefinitely, which is way beyond what you would expect when you just think of the coin as having 2 possible sides to land on – Probability is not a property of things.

Similarly, I'm not sure that 'randomness' really exists, and that events only seem unpredictable on the surface.  In my naive opinion randomness seems directly tied to lack of knowledge, therefore the more you know, the less random life should appear, and consequently you would be presented with a different kind of ‘fate’ in the form of inevitability perhaps.

Someone with a greater knowledge of mathematics and statistics could possibly point out the flaws in this idea for me though.

In terms of the evolution of thought, I imagine that if you work backwards, first to a time before modern science, the prevailing beliefs would have been largely superstitious, where people attributed the weather and other events to the gods and so forth.  Things would have seemed much more random and unpredictable to the average individual, and even to the most knowledgeable at the time.

Advancing even further back and it’s unlikely that the thought of gods, higher powers or any ‘powers’ at all crossed anyone’s mind.  The thought of being subject to a bunch of mysterious forces was just too advanced to occur anywhere.

Awareness of predictability is one of the things which have allowed man to manipulate the world around him in an increasing number of ways.  Discovery and observation of the existence of physical laws, and the ability to connect cause with effect has shaped human progress as we know it.  From the creation of basic tools to the discovery of medicines and knowledge of human anatomy, it all seems to be an awakening from the apparent randomness we were once surrounded by. 

So if you imagine a future that continues much in the same way, there would be things which at present we believe to be random that would be unveiled as being predictable at some point.  This is clearly true for scientific discovery, but also for discoveries on a personal level.  This may be one reason why knowing more can actually complicate things for people.  It’s not that knowledge of the facts has suddenly changed what the facts are, but that the knowledge has destroyed the mystery; the notion of things being random and the idea that you have no control, or that you do have control. 

Knowledge endows you with the burden of responsibility.  Once you no longer believe that smoking is healthy for example, you cannot hide in your own ignorance.  What you can do however, is formulate a nice-sounding story about why you will continue with the destructive act. 

Realisation that certain physical laws exist is what separates those who attempt to improve by blind experimentation, and those who heed these rules and use them to their advantage. 

If we weren’t to build upon the knowledge of others, or to make use of the information granted to us by science we would be living in a completely different world, where we may be reduced to animals once again.

Manipulation of the world around you through utilisation of the rules is not cheating, but may be seen as ‘unnatural’ if you suppose that advancement through technology goes against some unwritten code of conduct, or that there are limits as to how much we should use such knowledge to our advantage. There appears to be some kind of conflict that occurs inside the average human, a dilemma in which he cannot decide where to draw the line between what he believes to be his ‘natural’ (and therefore optimal and pure) self, and the many improvements he can make through modern technologies. 

Transhumanism appears to be the epitome of embracing human advancement to its fullest extent, and would seem to require individuals to give up certain beliefs that would otherwise prevent them from benefitting from such technology.

It’s almost as if a desire to remain the same is considered part of what it is to be human in the eyes of anti-technologists and the quietly superstitious.

Leaving things to ‘chance’ may seem like you have simply left room for infinite possibility, because ignorance can feel like a blank canvas, when in fact it is more akin to being blind in a picture gallery.  It doesn’t matter what you draw on your map, or if you choose to draw nothing at all; certain things are irremovably part of the landscape.  You can trade the opportunity to discover facts beforehand for a surprising outcome here or there, but you sacrifice efficiency along with your own powers as an intelligent being, and even perhaps that title itself.  This is very apparent when it comes down to health or physical well-being and the choices we make.  But even human irrationality itself is predictable.

I believe that some people deny or outright reject the predictability of things, in part because on the surface it undermines their ideas of free will and purpose in life.  As if knowing certain results beforehand, or just expecting-with-good-reason makes action redundant and takes away personal power, when in fact power is derived from these very things.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a linguistic term for when part of something is used to refer to its whole, or when the whole is used to refer to a single part.  I would therefore argue that in a sense all labelling and name-calling is synecdoche, and that it reflects the ways in which language plays a significant role in our understanding of the world around us. 

Whether you refer to your car as your ‘wheels’, or to your chassis, internal combustion engine, transmission system, exhaust and wheels etc. as your ‘car’, each label omits details that are implicit and often only vaguely understood.  You might state that your ‘car needs fixing’, when you really mean that some specific part of it is broken, or that you like jazz, when you are actually referring to just a number of pieces that belong to that genre. 

It is a case of abridging explanations, of drawing a simpler map and thus disregarding certain features of the landscape.

My name is Elliot.  This is the label I have been given to refer to myself when in time of need, and coincidentally it is the name most others recognise me by.  What’s interesting is that no two people have the same Elliot experience, yet the unique information that each person has can all be found stored in the collective Elliot section.

The problem is that once you’ve created this basic profile, the information it contains seems to be rarely updated except for superficialities, or in the case of global changes.  Instead of taking the subtleties into account, the creator of the file is free to fill in the blanks with his own ideas, steered by cognitive biases, blind to their existence and influence.

The name brings to mind a definite set of qualities which will depend largely on the relationship you have with me and the different situations you have seen me in.  ‘Elliot’ is not a universally accepted idea.

It occurred to me that it is misleading to describe yourself or anyone else as having an undersized vocabulary.  Sure there are words that we don’t use, as in the case of the ‘passive vocabulary’, but I don’t believe that lack of comprehension is our biggest barrier to bringing them into active use.

We understand more than is necessary to live our daily lives and are exposed not only to terminology that we understand and do not use, but also various other experiences that we have the potential to add to our active ‘vocabulary’. 

I feel that the situations and social groups we interact with determine the ways in which differing examples of vocabulary are expressed.  It’s not necessarily that we are so limited by what we know (although the significance of our ignorance shouldn’t be understated), but by what we are comfortable and accustomed to using, and by what we imagine is appropriate given the situation.

Think of the way you might talk to your best friend, versus how you might speak to their parents.  You will present a different version of yourself to them, but neither could rightly be described as being ‘more accurate’ than the other, although this is almost certainly not the way you friend may see it.

If you ever observe someone try something completely new for the first time, be it a change of appearance, a new language or a different hobby for example, it is generally quite an awkward affair.  A person must take the time to become familiar with the new terminology and so forth, and to become comfortable through exposure and repetition – to make it ‘their own’; to add it to their active vocabulary. 

We can imagine the kinds of things we might do or say if we were to utilise parts of our passive ‘vocabulary’, for instance we can envisage the way we might talk or carry ourselves if we were confident in a situation that currently unsettles us.  And we can imagine ourselves speaking, writing, dancing and so on, in ways that we are currently only familiar with as passive observers. 

To be uninhibited; to be willing to try each and any unfamiliar thing, and to allow ourselves the opportunity to assimilate new information, and to broaden our vocabulary in the widest sense.   As adults we seem to lose this habit of imitation as a means of learning things that interest us, perhaps it is because we don’t acknowledge that conditioning is necessary, and we irrationally expect or hope to be good at and comfortable with things we have never tried before.  We need to put our pride aside and humbly accept that we must begin at the beginning, regardless of age, other experience and competencies and the expectations they bring with them.    

How I imagine things work is something along these lines:

You have a lot of information in your brain, along with the potential to act in all manner of ways, but it is your interactions with other people and things outside of yourself that brings out or causes the activation of the different aspects of what is commonly referred to as your ‘self’. 

Conditioning will determine what information you store as well as the patterns of thought and behaviour that you are more familiar with, along with the programs that are ‘instinctually’ chosen over the others.  

What arises out of your conditioning, the limitations of the human brain, and your various interactions, is a multidimensional experience that contradicts the static representation that is generally evoked when we recall anyone by name or image.

What should be more significant is that we think of even ourselves in these simplistic and biased terms.  We suppose a list of features that describe us, and another that clearly doesn’t resemble us in any way.  But if we had an accurate memory, or at the very least a basic record of the different ways in which we have acted throughout our past, then we would see that not only could we use list two to describe ourselves, but there would also be many instances in which it would be inaccurate to use the descriptions from the first list.

There may be such a list that describes how we are on average; a ‘way’ in which we behave most commonly, but how are we able to separate those facts from all our own biases about ourselves? 

How do we keep in mind the fact that who we think we are is at least in part determined by the routines we are acting out?  Because in that sense we are reflections of things, just as a computer is always a reflection of its programming, no matter who the user is.

Perhaps a new experience of ‘self’ is possible if we make it a practice to think of ourselves as always being more than what we currently have the habit of thinking?  To retain the awareness that the possibilities for new behaviour are always there, often just out of sight.

It’s comforting to think of things in terms of what we know, understand, and expect, but it’s also necessary to categorise in such a way for the sake of communication, as in the case of labelling.  But in order to have a conversation that is perhaps a better representation of something, the subject must be understood on increasingly deeper levels.  For most things in everyday life this may be completely unnecessary, but I feel that an awareness of this idea is important.

On one level you merely have a pizza, perhaps divided into slices.  On another level the pizza has a fancy sounding Italian name and you are conscious of all the toppings.  Another level down and you are aware of all the constituent ingredients and nutritional information.  Further still and you might talk of the various chemical components that make up the ingredients and so on.

Likewise, in order to have a more precise conversation about what an individual is like it is necessary to understand his multifaceted and compartmentalised nature.  It’s simply not good enough to imagine that everything is so black and white.

When you consider that our perceptions of people are based on our own predilections, and that no characteristic is constant, it should become clear that out own minds are responsible for what we all too often mistake for concrete facts.  For example, whether or not you find someone ‘nice’ or ‘irritating’ will be dependent on how they fit or go against your preferences, which can vary from time to time.

So using your name, your job title or even your age to describe yourself is like using a chainsaw to perform keyhole surgery.  At the end of the day you must select the right tool for the job, the right language, words and details to refer to the known territory.

A pizza could be made from any flour, have any number of different toppings, it could even be sweet.  By only using the word ‘pizza’ the reader is left to fill in the blanks again, and the same happens when you describe yourself in simple terms, like by your hobbies, interests, or political leanings for example.  We each have our own ideas and associations to these things which will taint our perception.  We infer further similarities where there aren’t necessarily any, only because we share characteristics on paper.

So if you like making assumptions and drawing conclusions based on superficial details, then this blog is for you!

Flimsy Film Critic

Life is very much like a movie.  A bad movie.  A movie we have made the effort to schedule time out for and paid money to attend.  Money we can’t be refunded just because we dislike the storyline or one of the actors.  It is an investment of sorts, one we make in expectation of it all being 'worthwhile', however we personally define or calculate it. 

The lives of others, albeit the most entertaining, dramatic or heart-warming highlights have served as the trailers, and given us an unrealistic taste of what to expect.  They project the all the best scenes, the funniest jokes and most romantic moments, and to top it all off they edit it to a fitting soundtrack to stir your emotions and help paint the picture they desire. 

Yet regardless of how many inaccurate images we view throughout our lives, we consistently revert to our hopeful selves upon seeing a new trailer, as if this time things will be different.  As if the techniques employed by the advertising department would have changed. 

Upon realising that we have wasted both time and money on such a disappointing production, instead of leaving to avoid wasting any more of our precious time, and suffering unnecessarily through such a banal and often excruciatingly cliché plot, we decide to stay.  Not just in the hope that things will get better if given the chance, but because we stubbornly want to receive our money’s worth, no matter how bad it may be.  We wish for things to improve so much as to even things out, because that’s how it’s supposed to work, right?  The movie just has to get better.

We have a curious way of remembering the past, because no matter how bad the reality was we only seem capable of recalling a dumbed-down version.  Conversely, when we think of events that were in reality more positive, or even emotionally-neutral, we may apply a positive feeling across a much greater area than it actually covered.  Read the entry on Hindsight Bias for an interesting look at the different ways in which our memories can be distorted.

We see the past less as shades of grey or even black and white, but as mostly pale.

When I finally die (as I keep having to remind myself) I don’t want people to lie about me in romantic speeches or within the privacy of their own minds.  I don’t want to be Ghandified and for people to credit me where it’s undue, simply because they’re fragile and need a suitable story to support their difficult-to-fathom emotions. 

Even the worst criminals seem to be remembered more fondly and innocently than should be warranted.

What’s the purpose of deliberately choosing a grimmer outlook over a sunny one, however more accurate the former may in fact be?  Isn’t it just better to be happier and feel good about life, than it is to acknowledge the unfortunate or less-than-desirable truth?  For me the answer is a clear ‘no’.  The reason being I don’t believe happiness, or the pursuit thereof, should be placed above all else.  Not only is happiness fleeting, but knowing that it is granted at the expense of wilful ignorance leaves me with a potent feeling of intellectual discomfort.

We like to appear clever, sensible, inquisitive and all in favour of uncovering life’s mysteries, but when faced with the task of unweaving the facts from familiar fiction, we fail at the first hurdle.  Willing to wear the uniform in order to stand up and be counted, but reluctant to do anything that might get it dirty.

The prospect of uncovering the truth in all manner of ordinary-seeming things is much more appealing than the idea of owning a delicate happiness that we must work to defend and preserve.

Often in life we make choices whilst being unaware that we are doing so.  I don’t mean to say that when we sit down of a morning to eat breakfast that we have subconsciously chosen not to assassinate the president instead, but that many choices are made by default. 

Our brains don’t have the power to process all of the things we can possibly conceive of but don’t want to do, so it makes sense that our focus is largely on what we do want. 

But knowing what we do want isn’t always as easy and straightforward as it seems, and so due to our ponderings we inevitably end up with the results of inaction and indecision.  Choosing to ‘do nothing’ or refusing to choose one way or the other is essentially deciding to leave things up to ‘fate’, but it is initially a conscious decision, however ignorant of the consequences or potential outcomes you may be.

Imagine a friend offers you a brand new, shiny 21 speed road bike for less than half of what you would expect to pay for it in the shops.  You already have a well-worn BMX sitting in your garden shed, but you know if you had a new bike you’d be out and about on it at every available opportunity.  You have enough money to make the purchase, but you were saving up to buy shares in Chicken Cottage, and you know that at this price the bike on offer won’t be around forever. 

There is much to consider and you remain divided. 

The money you saved is safely in your safe (of all places), and after a week or so your friend is arrested for handling stolen property.  Effectively you have chosen to keep your money, to change nothing as it were.  Regardless of whether the acknowledgement of this choice entered your awareness or not, it was a choice you have made.

Life is very much like the above scenario, but played out on a much bigger scale.  I don’t see people so much as choosing to live, but rather living by default as a result of being born. 

Your birth is the biggest and most significant choice you have no control over.  This is one reason at least, why I feel the decision to create life is too weighty to take lightly – perhaps we should just leave it to default?

On the other hand, suicide requires too much commitment to be a viable option for the majority of the human race.