over the influence

I read recently that "making people think about their preferences makes them stupid." a writer named Malcom Gladwell said it, and was quoted at the end of this. there was an interesting example about strawberry jam. what does that mean? that we don't really know why we like certain things and don't like other things, and that in fact trying to justify our opinions renders them less real?

or is it only thinking about things before we prefer them that creates this sort of de facto ignorance? surely it can't be all thinking that ties us up in stupidknots. thinking is a smart thing... isn't it?

me, I'm not very opinionated. I like plaid. I like chocolate. I love books and traveling. why?

perhaps no one can say.

I don't like ugly plastic things, or things that don't match, and I'm not a big fan of changing my clothes more than once a day. why not?

are there no reasons? or are they just reasons that can't be put into words? or are they reasons so hopelessly buried, deep in the twisting corridors of my brain, blocked off by a hundred bricked-up doorways, that no matter how much thinking about them I do, I'll never find them?

I read not quite so recently that "man everywhere and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated." A writer named Dostoevsky said that, and I came across it in an old book of existentialist philosophy.

so no matter how close we get to knowing what it's all about--what we're all about--we are just as likely to do something completely random and out of character. oh good. freedom. such a wonderful thing.

I guess it's another remix of the old melody, ignorance is bliss. don't think too much, or you'll never get anywhere. don't un-brick those deep-down doorways, or the flood will swallow you up.

so even though I can't tell if this prickly restlessness and all these tugging confusions will take me anywhere reasonable, or better, or worthwhile, I may as well take the chance.