Associations with past events

Associations

Being ill can make you appreciate the good times. To be ill enough to take the day off work but not so bad that you wish you were dead can give you time to reflect. It is quite sanctifying.

Those that think drinking fresh fruit juice will ward off a cold gleefully consume lots when the rest of the family are throwing up in the toilet with groaning exaggerated expressions. Sometime later you follow suit, re-tasting the orange juice drank shortly beforehand. From then on, the sight of orange juice brings back memories of that emetic time. You drank it happily, readily before but now you declare that you would prefer something else to drink instead. These associations are powerful. They can linger for a long time. In some cases, you might avoid oranges and orange juice for years. However, after several hundred revolutions of the earth you try it again, albeit with a little trepidation. You announce to the world that you like orange juice again via attention seeking displays and fanfares. You have returned to the former state with the original list of drinks that you like, ranked in the same original preference order.

The intensity of associations we have with things can become so great that we become phobic. A total rejection of something that you inherently like but avoid because of bad experiences associated with it. In such instances, significant effort is required to dismantle the connections in your mind derailing your preferences. Associations help us stay safe sometimes. They keep us clear of the ugly whilst also drawing us towards the super and sublime. Bad associations put a blanket over our preferences.

The art of seduction is to enchant and make something feel vastly desirable through make believe. Our senses are swindled. Seduction is pretence over honesty. We can be seduced by advertisements and seduction lies at the heart of peer influence. Our friends seduce us into saying that we like the same things as them. We attempt to shift other people’s preferences by promoting all the positives. Those with the greatest notoriety and respect gleaned from others go to war with our inbuilt preferences. To be at one with yourself you need to be at one with your own preferences. You need to understand that your preferences can’t be moulded and shaped at will to suit others. When a friend says something positive about something we may agree but agree with dishonesty. The wise may agree however, knowing that it is good to be polite and diplomatic.

We can’t change the core of what we are. We can’t change what we are given at birth by design. Nurture plays a huge role in how we turn out but some aspects of us are fixed. It is a cornerstone of who we are as individuals. The things that we have a strong preference for, things that we go to great lengths to seek out are what I call affinities. A powerful force are they.