I like to research the best. What is the best watch, tv, book, car, etc? I try to take into consideration all aspects, like my usage, the cost of acquisition and maintenance, the impact of my using something politically, environmentally, etc. After a little cogitation, a little fooling about, a little putting the matter off for a while, I come to the decision that X is best, all around. The problem is that now I am stuck with X forever. Anything else has been found to be inferior so X is the only choice.
After a while, X becomes boring, old hat. It is good, sure, but after enough use, I don't notice the goodness. So, it makes sense in a way to use something else, something that may be clearly inferior, just for the sake of variety. It occurs to me just now that I could be being mislead by words. Maybe it isn't true after enough time that X is superior to other choices. It was and it might be again but once it gets to be the same old thing, once I fail to see it as it is, it is no longer superior to all other possibilities.
The study of thinking habits, thinking steps and procedures, sometimes nowadays called heuristics, includes familiarity as a property that is often attractive. The beginning of Wray Herbert's book On Second Thought describes some experienced winter skiers entering a valley just waiting to dump a deadly avalanche on them. There were signs that the place was unsafe but they didn't notice the signs. Why? Because they had entered and skied that valley many times before. It was "familiar", it had been ok, good, fine. So, without taking the time to see, they just assumed and entered.
I have thought for years that there was a tussle of impulses between the two of us: one for the tried and true and one for fun and new. But now, while writing this, I see my use of the familiarity handle leads me into taking the same old course without thinking about it and without being actually able to appreciate the good features of the X I chose because it is the same old thing to me and I am unable to see it anew, whole and clearly. I have thought of Lynn as being allergic to the tried and true, someone who needs a new path, a new activity, a change and me calmly staying with what I knew. Now, I get the feeling that I have been in the grip of an unthinking pattern. I'll try a new attitude and see how it fits.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
