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Monday, December 3, 2007

Why not?

Nathan and I had a discussion about preference. Why not you? Why not me? What does anther have that each of us don't?

Among the seas of faces we encounter daily, how do we select the person we do select - for a friend, companion, acquaintance, object of our affection, the like. Yes, the labels. (And no matter how insistent we become about how we DON'T believe in labeling and how hard we deny that we don't condone such, much less practice it, the whole labeling thing is inevitable. Unavoidable.) Why do we make the selection? Why them? Why these people?

We issue standards. We comply with them 0 sometimes struggling as we do so, sometimes with ease: unconsciously, as if we were born to make our choices based on those standards. Other times, we discard them and declare our independence from personally established norms, so to speak. So, when do we do so? Why do we do so? Why pick that person among all of them? Why do we make that choice?

The answer, you might say, lies in the free will of humans. Freedom to select. Freedom of choice. Right to organization, even (as if friendships are organizations - well in a way, they are, but that's debatable). Point there. But that really does not answer the how's and the why's of selection.


The answer is different for every person.
Yes. Of course. Or else, those not selected will never be selected. And there'll be hordes of people vying for the same people, as well.

Why me? Why you?

I could listen all day to each answer.

2 comments:

alchemical said...

Actually we rely on intuition. We hardly, if ever, decide on romantic entanglements on the basis of rational choice. Most of the time we follow (yes, we don't choose) the dictates of intuition or chemistry. That's fine though. Our reason is generally a bad judge of who we'd be attracted to.

No anonymous comments huh. Oh well, can't link to Multipleegos then. Oh wait I just did. :P

Lei said...

Nice to hear from you after a long long time. Oh wait. It hasn't been that long. I'm just exaggerating.

Of course, if those things were based on rational choice, it would be a plan. A scheme, maybe. But it would be a logical plan, if ever. Self-serving. Of course. We wouldn't exactly plan things to destroy ourselves, unless it's purely out of curiosity and masochism, or we're plainly self-destructive. But at least it's of our own planning.

Following our intuition may be both good or bad - like everything else. It's amazing at times how one seemingly insignificant step leads to damnation/salvation.

Ugh. Gobbledygook.