"Imagination Magnifies Small Objects with Fantastic Exaggeration Until They Fill Our Soul . . ."

I came across the above quote from Blaise Pascal used in the opening of The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese by Miachael Paterniti. Though I've only gotten through 50 pages, I'm struck that I may be reading a work of genius.

Back to the Pascal quote. It speaks to my watch obsession, the interaction of imagination and object and the way we add value to things by turning them into chimeras. 

My guess is we can be aware of these follies, but there is no cure to wipe them out, for they are embedded in the DNA of our reptilian brains. 

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Comments

[jonnybardo]

I don't know if we can "wipe them out," but I think they can be transformed by discovering the underlying need and meeting, resolving, dissolving, or simply becoming aware of what it is.

Let's say Billy loves Skittles and is somewhat obsessed with them, eating a big bag every couple days (don't worry - this is hypothetical). As long as he doesn't inquire into why that "love" exists, it will remain, unless it is possibly replaced by something else, a surrogate.

But let's say he inquires a bit and eventually realizes that he first ate skittles during one summer when he was 10 years old when his family was last happy and harmonious. That fall dad lost his job, began drinking, and mom kicked him out in the spring. So perhaps Billy had a "moment," a vestigial memory and association of skittles with a kind of "Golden Age" of family and safety.

By recognizing this it might de-mystify Skittles a bit. But more so, it might allow Billy to focus on the underlying need: which is community and family.

Now I'm not saying that your (or my) obsession with watches has that kind of real life memory attached to it, some deep underlying cause...but SOMETHING is there, some deeper need.

On a side, but related, note, for my graduate studies in psychology I'm drawing up a preliminary mock research study on the impact of creative and imaginative play on psychological well-being. The tentative hypothesis is that human beings are inherently creative and imaginative, that much of our surface pleasures and entertainments are ultimately unsatisfying surrogates for a deeper need to create, to imagine, and to play - and by "play" I mean an activity done for its own sake, not for some Serious Purpose That Matters.

[Ulysses]

I must agree with Jonny especially that last paragraph of his. I've often thought that when I see what kinds of hobbies people take up and wondering what need they are trying to satiate with their behaviour.