Thursday 3 May 2007

Too much of a bad thing?

My beautiful wife said to me today,

"You think too much."

She worries that my incessant Socratic Questioning will get the better of me. Perhaps she imagines me in a world of entropy, where everything is reduced to blandness. A world where love, beauty and awe have been swept away by explanation.

I say to her, "It's an impossibility, for I will never truly grasp the immensity of my love for you."

Marvin Minsky came to mind;

"We all are reluctant, with regard to music and art, to examine our sources of pleasure or strength. In part we fear success itself– we fear that understanding might spoil enjoyment. Rightly so: art often loses power when its psychological roots are exposed. No matter; when this happens we will go on, as always, to seek more robust illusions!"

The more I understand not only the world, but myself, the more I appreciate what I have. However fleeting it may be.

Illusion or not, no matter.

4 comments:

vjack said...

Hearing the criticism of thinking too much rings a bell, as I've been accused of that crime too. It makes me think about individual differences in the tolerance for ambiguity (i.e., some people have to have answers for eveything and cannot accept any degree of uncertainty). I suspect that most atheists have a greater tolerance for ambiguity than do most Christians because we can lead satisfied lives without clinging to delusion.

jamon said...

The most terrifying thing about some people is their certainty.

Unknown said...

are you absolutely sure about that?

jamon said...

completely ;)