Sunday, April 12, 2015

EDIE AND CYRUS


(a dialogue)
by Richard A. Spiegel

Edie
What do you mean by desire?

Cyrus
It’s complex, eh?

Edie
Yeah.  It is complex.

Cyrus
Let me try to define it.

Edie
Oh, come on.  It’s really simple.

Cyrus
No.  You asked for complexity.

Edie
I’m kidding you.

Cyrus
But desire poses a real philosophic problem.

Edie
How so?  Tell me.

Cyrus
Is it an illusion?  You think you know what you desire, but are you fooling yourself?

Edie
I know what I want.

Cyrus
What happens when you get it?

Edie
Then I want something else.

Cyrus
So, you constantly desire.

Edie
Yes.  

Cyrus
Then you’re eternally wanting.  

Edie
I don’t think so.  

Cyrus
Desire attaches itself to an object.  That object of desire might be what makes a message jump from neuron to neuron.  The nerve message enters our body through the senses.  Then it finds its way to the brain, jumping from neuron to neuron.  Now, desire is what informs the message where to jump.

Edie
I think you’ve lost me.

Cyrus.
Follow this.  Why won’t a message from the eye just stop?  What propels it on?  What force?  Desire!

Edie
Desire is a force?

Cyrus
Like gravity.  The gravity we know on Earth is this planet’s desire to hold us, to possess our presence.  If it let go, it would no longer desire us.

Edie
Mmmmm.  I’m not sure of that.  When we lose something, or let it go – that doesn’t mean we no longer desire it.

Cyrus
Ah, here comes the illusion of desire.

Edie
That’s not clear.  Let’s go back to the neurons and the message that jumps.

Cyrus
It jumps from the ends of the neurons; dendrites and axons or whatever they’re called.

Edie
Okay.  So they jump to the connector they desire.  They might wind up at the wrong connection, but their desire is constant. 
Cyrus
So they keep jumping until they arrive somewhere in the brain and the mind becomes conscious of that message which becomes a mental image.

Edie
Which could be a dream.  

Cyrus
We dream on.

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