2024-08-30
Twice my guitar has twinged slightly as the wind brushes the curtain against it. This most beautiful music... and yet, in the stimulation of the moment, or with extraordinary skill, a man could make something so much more beautiful, yet in a way so much less...
More is less, and that adage. Less is less, more is more, less is more, more is less. Programmers say that kind of thing, mostly that less is more. I suppose I could write about this... Not now.
I want to talk about optimal mood, if it is possible all the time, what can be done to avoid suboptimal mood (or at least, the worst excesses of it), whether indeed this is a good thing, and briefly the interesting effect of showers.
I'm not quite sure what optimal mood is. I suppose I could say *I know it when I see it*, yet really I'm not too sure. I feel as though I have moments when my mood is more optimal, in a way that is more conducive to maybe not productivity, but that which I want to do. Or, the mood is more conducive to those attributes of myself that I find more desirable. For instance, if I am in a mood where social matters are easier (i.e. less inhibited) I consider this, for a social situation, to be the better mood, in that it allows me to perform better in social situations. If again I am in a mood to write, I could say I am in a more conducive mood to do wv. However, if I desire not to write wv, and instead to practise guitar, but am instead stuck writing wv because I "want" to in some primal way, then I would say my mood is not optimal, as the desire I as a thinking agent have is different to the desire that I am currently most inclined to carry out. In the same way, if I am feeling desirous of sex (horny, for lack of a better word) and I do not want to carry out any sexual acts, then I am in a suboptimal mood, as my desire as a higher, thinking agent is contrary to the desire my body has. In a way, this could also relate to what I said about vice, and errvice, and about non-lucid states of mind (0010, 0011). This division into two, between an act which is desirous by the higher, thinking reason, let's call it *reasonish desire* (to correlate it with reason, yet not to assume it is always necessarily reasonable), and a desire carried out by a lower state, let's call it *lower desire*, could then go some way to clarify the concept of vice, or errvice. Vice or errvice are actions committed in non-lucidity that are regrettable or undesirable. I now understand that *regrettable* here refers to *contrary to higher reason*. As such, if I have a vice, let's pick nail-biting as an example, then it is vicious as it is an action, committing in non-lucidity (which, I suppose is in its own way merely to say, committed by the lower urges) which is contrary to the desire of the higher reason. In this way, I can redefine vice and errvice as, respectively:
I say *bisecting desire*, as we now have desire itself (which, I remind, I would call an action; the state being desirousness) as the act performed by either the lower urges or higher reason, in turn giving *lower desire* and *reasonish desire*, or *higher desire*. It is not that necessarily the acts of the lower desire are bad, nor is that the lower desire is inherently bad in some way.
Optimal mood, is then when the desires of the lower urges align with the desires of the higher reason. I suppose the higher reason can adapt more quickly and will change what it wants more quickly, wheres the lower urges are more primal in a sense, and less given to change. They can however, with pushing from the higher reason, gradually change.
I suppose separating this out, we have *desire* as an act performed by both the higher reason and lower urges. In turn, this desire results in particular acts which are related the desire. For instance, if the lower urges desire sex, they can commit an act which is sexual in nature, say, masturbation, or engaging in the sexual pursuit. To avoid confusion that the lower urges are inherently for those things traditionally termed base or sinful, I will also that it may also be that the lower urges may on another occasion desire to read, and so will engage in acts that relate to that desire, say, picking up a book and reading it. However, if the higher reason does not desire sex, say, as it is wasteful of resources, or will result in an unfortunate situation, the higher reason and the lower urges are at conflict, as the desires are different. Likewise, it is conceivable (though unlikely) that the lower urges desire to read, yet the higher reason desires to engage in some what is traditionally termed vice. In this way, sin in a religious sense is really just that which is not corresponding to the higher reason, and it appears, say, potentially societally determined, what exactly is a sin in the religious sense.
Are acts always committed by lower urges? I would say likely; unless the higher reason can in a way persuade the lower urges in a direction, the desires of the lower urges are carried out.
I assume not. Optimal mood then is defined as alignment of the desires of the lower urges and of the higher reason. I imagine, given the tendency of the higher reason to change its desires, and the comparative slowness of the lower urges in changing its desires, that optimal mood is not possible perpetually.
Or, rephrased, the misalignment of the desires of the higher reason and lower urges.
One way would be to, for those matters which are, and have been, consistently, termed by the higher reason as undesirable, eliminate the tendency towards desire within the lower urges. I assume this can be done by the higher reason through repeated pursuit of the action of the higher reason by the lower urges, or, overriding the lower urges by the higher reason.
Ok, I'm actually bored of this now and the inspiration is already gone, but I think it was actually a helpful distinction... maybe, Again, I do feel as though it's a little bit of "natura saporifica", but hey. It's fun to think about.
Just so I cover off all the points. Showers are interesting, aren't they? They seem to, not just clean the body, but have some kind of effect in terms of cleaning the spirit also. I would say, likely given the above analysis, they act in a way to align the desires of the lower urges with the higher reason. But is it some unique effect of the water? Or, rather, is it because there is nothing to do in a shower save for focussing on washing the body? As a result, the mind undergoes a form of meditation, if only for five or ten minutes, and emerges in a more coherent, aligned state, where the reasonish and the lower desires are the same. Potentially, meditation could have a similar effect. A shower might be more effective as the body must be used in the process of showering.
It also seems that, when the reasonish and lower desires are fully misaligned, and one almost seems to continually, the entire day do what is wrong to do, and be in that kind of horrid state where the body seems to disobey the commands of the mind, that a shower has an even greater effect, or, it seems as if the shower has an even greater effect the further the two desires are misaligned! Well, maybe, but I'm going to leave it here for today.
39 wvs. It's not bad. I wonder how long it will take me to reach a hundred. And what I will be thinking, will be writing...
Have a good one.