Monday, November 11, 2019

The best sauce for any meal is an appetite

The benefit of necessity has been touted numerously and with great variety. Not unlike so many adages the deeper resource lies in the question, not the answer.  It has for example been asserted on the most far fetched level that conspiracy theories resolve untold manipulations, distortions, innuendo and nefarious undertakings. It may seem a wild step from appetite to politics but the product is the same. They both answer a need and the selection similarly comes down to taste. It remains however to ask what is the best decision. Granted you can only digest what is palatable;  a meal should not be tolerable merely because of the propelling appetite. But the aphorism ("The best sauce, etc.") contains inherent mischief; namely, appetite enhances the need but colours the substance.

The classification of one's desires and one's imperatives evokes different processes. It isn't enough simply to want something to choose it. It is foremost a reminder that many have advanced theories of living, an equal number of which are based upon bad habits not good reasoning.  For example, "Any damn fool can make money but it takes a smart man to keep it"; or, "Don't stay out all night drinking liquor". While true these proverbs do not address mankind's innate curiosity of thought.  Geese fly south to find their food; but they don't require the elevation of logic in the affair.  Mankind on the other hand is amused by intractable thought - there has to be a reason for everything.

Reckoning the reason for our choices is a sobering enterprise. It turns the process of activity upon its head.  Instead of advancing solely in the direction of our craving we relinquish enthusiasm to the far less vivid domain of justification. It requires some blunt analysis to confess at the outset that appetite is not the answer to consumption. The more profound examination is not why you're eating it, but what you're eating. Isolated from the visceral additive the substantive undertakings we choose to pursue become far less contaminated by seasoning - its own form of impertinence (as in "saucy Worchestershire"). It is a metaphorical redirection to raw vegetables and fruit rather than cream cheese and olive oil.

Naturally there will be those who argue that life is short so just about any indulgence is preferred to the dreariness of introspection.  I'm not convinced.  Reflecting upon my past I have to say that not every choice proved the worth of its initial yearning. It is all very well to override historic wantonness but it fails to contribute to what for most of us is the hard reality of living. If we're intent upon reducing behaviour to catchy phrases then it at least behooves us to render more than a comic account or what might satisfy J. P. Donleavy's bawdy tales.

Though I have yet to crystallize the formulation, I'm inclined to promote the advantage of distilled thinking or what in the vernacular is denoted as simplicity. Reducing one's otherwise complicated affairs to this level of analysis itself requires work but its expediency arises from natural persuasion. Submitting to our visceral promotions is an important part of the project - again what is customarily labelled as "gut reaction" or revived in the comment, "I knew I should have listened to my instinct!" Certainly the clarity of distance helps, removing oneself from the immediacy of preoccupation and influence. Standing back permits us to see the context of what is really happening.  At a certain distance life is a mere spectacle.  Deciding upon how to interact with the performance, whether to remain in the fro of centre stage or to exit stage right, these are critical observations.  Though they are metaphorical only, their implication is more integral.  Deciding upon the best sauce for any meal requires more than an appetite.

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