So Simple

Something is bugging me. My thinking about it has become obsessive: It is there when I wake up in the morning and when I am going (or trying to go) to sleep at night. It is nothing "big" at all: just a minor irritant in "objective" terms, but like the pea under the mattress, it is spoiling my life's equanimity. This not being a fairy tale, I don't think this shows that I have royal blood. It probably shows only that I am neurotic. But my thinking (obsessing?!) about this obsession also shows I am a philosopher (methinks).

So what does the philosopher think about it? A very simple but (therefore?) potentially highly useful idea, namely, that any object of obsession can be addressed and perhaps ameliorated in one of three ways, to wit: (1) satisfy the obsession; (2) divert the attention elsewhere; or (3) reduce the intensity of (or eliminate) the desire.

(1) is often not an option, or at least not a very feasible one, which may be why we are obsessing in the first place. (2) is the goal of many forms of meditation, such as focusing one's mind on a mantra or a candle flame or one's breathing. (3) is the recommendation of Buddhism, although here again, as with (1), the means may not be readily available. Certainly one cannot simply will oneself not to desire something or to desire it less, no more than one can will oneself to believe or disbelieve something, such as that Santa Claus does or does not exist. (2) is one of the methods of achieving (3), if only by permitting the passage of time to reduce one's desire. Acquiring information (or misinformation) is another method; thus, one's desire to eat a sumptuous-looking sausage could be quickly scotched and even reversed once one learned what it was actually made of. Yet another method of reducing desire is taking a drug; for example, an anti-depressant could make one simply care less about the object of obsession. Unfortunately drugs have other ("side") effects besides the desired one; thus an anti-depressant might make one care less about everything. That is like grabbing a shotgun to kill a mosquito. But sometimes one is being attacked not by a mosquito but by a tiger ... or a flotilla of fleas.

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