The Science Behind Murphy's Law

That's my new muse -- another book. This time, it's about the quirkiness of life. You know, situations like when your nose starts to itch after your hands are tied. Or why a watched pot never boils. In a way, you could see it as someone's attempt at demystifying all those old wives' tales and cliches that people throw around effortlessly about the way things can turn out in life.

As with all books and (intelligent) fine products of the print industry, these humourous explanations got me thinking. There seems to be a logical explanation for just about everything that happens. Talk about thinking too much... This book just puts an interesting spin on just about everything that pertains to our perceptions -- it seems like our minds are the cause of all this inconvenience in our lives.

Bad timing, things happening too quickly or slowly, making the same mistakes again and again, bad luck... everything can be traced back to the brain in some way. From the sound of it, social life seems to have developed at such a neck-breaking pace over the last millenia that our evolved brain is having trouble keeping up. Our ancestorial reflexes and mental process 'loops' are still prepared for a life of jungle life and wandering in loin cloth.

Still, there's plenty in this book that could pass as being entertaining. Heck, I'm actually thankful that our brains aren't developed to such capacity that we couldn't be surprised by these things anymore. Life would indeed be very boring after that, and the concept of surprise may well just disappear. You could then say that we know that some things are beautiful simply because there are so many other imperfections around.

Some little notes that I've picked up after the first two chapters:

• What we see depends on our expectation, and expectations are depended on memory. We see to a degree what we want to. (With respects to optical illusions, but applicable to many other areas too)
• Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory. (With respects to our enduring memory of bad versus good experiences and how they are formed. Ah, ignorance is indeed bliss)
• Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blow out the candle and fans the bonfire. (With respects to the imperfect recall ability of the average brain, and how memories tend to be exaggerated over time)

On a separate note, I guess I've lightened up on my mood about where and how we are. It's sufficient to say that we are both important to one another, though perhaps to varying degrees. Attachment (or if you prefer possession), as with showing appreciation, is a one of the many paradoxes that we have to learn to handle -- too much or too little of either ain't good. We both deserve to be happy. Meeting in the middle can indeed be tricky sometimes, especially since we don't already start on the same platform.

I've become clear of the ghosts that haunt me (then and still now, occasionally); the exact things that caused me such pain on that faithful night. It was an unfortunate buildup, really, how all the frustrations rolled up into a giant bundle and exploded in my face in spite of the good intentions. I was just looking for some reassurance, while you were looking for some release. What seemed so wrong then was perhaps just a reckless placement of priorities coupled with bad timing.

As we have said before -- let's just put these things behind us and move on (refer to Quote 2, haha). But please, don't do that again; not because you can't have fun, but because it scares everyone who cares about you. Though we didn't celebrate on that night as I hoped, I guess we could always wait... Besides, it's always a celebration when we're out enjoying ourselves.

Looking forward to the next time.

JKLM