Thursday, June 28, 2007

Contemplations on the nature of mankind

Ever find it vaguely disquieting at how ostensibly rational and intelligent people fall so easily into succumbing to improbable and sometimes even utterly insane bursts of behavior? It's as if there is a shared, universal unconscious determined to keep some sort of pain or misery alive in the hearts of every human. It doesn't have to be overt such as government driven pogrom or even the perpetuation of some variety of repression.

It's as elemental as misinterpreting a vital point in communicating with a loved one. As basic as letting want color what is. As simple as giving into impulse without thought.

It happens to everyone, someone will say something that just sets you off. One second everything is copasetic and the next, the mood has taken a dramatic shift. Perhaps there was some sort of communications miscue. Then again, perhaps it was just something locked in the neurons choosing that instance to set off a biochemical "fire alarm." Sorry honey, I just decided to wing that skillet past your head and into the drywall when you asked whether I'd started dinner yet for shits and giggles. I just automatically assumed you were making a complaint. I would love if you wanted to cook tonight.

And it doesn't stop there. Why do some men insist on sneaking into strip clubs or picking up hookers when they really don't have to? They could visit the club openly without censure, usually with less effort than it takes to pretend to be elsewhere. Or the guy who has a sex life that is utterly fantastic, who can't seem to help himself from hazarding it all just to see if he can get away with it.

What about the woman who builds elaborate fantasies and plans with a guy she has never yet met, heaping expectation upon expectation until no real person could fail to be a crushing disappointment only to do the same thing over and over again?

The entire premise my industry exists is to capitalize upon the spontaneous impulse, the overwhelming fantasy, the thrill of illicit desires. Does it make pornography evil or wrong? Not any more than the tissue paper industry is perverted because it fills the desire of society to scrape the feces from their backsides.

I just wonder what the benefit of self-generating discomfort would be to humanity as a species.

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