Please, hear me out before you object.
To help me make my claim,
is a beloved feline teacher, Boca de Acapulco. 😽
BOCA LOVES AVOCA🥑OS, JUST LIKE HIS HUMAN!
So after having eaten as much avocado as he wanted,
whyyyyy was he suckling the sheets again?!
No milk. No taste. No nourishment. SO WHY?
Why all the kneading and head-bobbing, as if anything REAL
or ACTUAL was coming off that cotton, other than
probably-toxic synthetic colors?! <--- (
I put my forehead to his, while he did his bobble thing...
and the sense I got was that he wasn't after milk at all.
He was self-soothing for something BEYOND physical food.
Google later confirmed my hunch.
Could finding worthy fixations be the meaning of human life?
To fixate is "to acquire an obsessive attachment
to someone or something." OBSESSIVE ATTACHMENT.
Freud called obsessive attachments immature.
He considered fixations infantile complexes to outgrow.
And I'm pretty sure Buddhism isn't too keen on them, either.
(Not that I'm a student of Freud or Buddha.)
But based on what I've seen, and experienced personally,
I'd say fixation feels like a part of our sapient identity and function,
that we have disowned by deeming it infantile or ill.
Fixation was dressed and described like a monster,
that leads to suffering. But what if it isn't (only) that?
Our own body is fixated on homeostasis.
And homestasis is a fixation on balance.
That's what got me looking for the light in fixation.
I asked (no one in particular, lol):
What GIFTS can come with obsessive attachment?
'Obsession' is simply having your mind filled or occupied.
What, exactly, is the problem with being filled or occupied
with something noble? Or innovative? Or healing, or beautiful,
or anything else virtuous and harmless?
Why is empty-headedness so seldom in the hot-seat,
while a developed attention span is treated like a terrorist hazard?
Q: Have you ever noticed how culture handles a strong and concentrated mental force?
(a) Captivates it (with entrancing ads).
(b) Divides it (with polarizing media).
(c) Demonizes it (with doctrine).
(d) Pathologizes it (with allopathy and pharmaceuticals).
(e) Homogenizes it (with school).
(f) Marginalizes it (with various propaganda campaigns).
(g) Dilutes it (with socialization that discourages deviation from The Pack).
Strong and concentrated mental forces seem celebrated
in technical fields and hard sciences, but it's generally accepted --
and even encouraged as far as I can see -- that we humans
are becoming increasingly more dumb.
Is it that we just favor intelligence that is artificial, and not real??
I'm not suggesting that we live by infantile instinct, but that we accept and guide it.
Like Prince John -- the thumb-sucking lion
above -- it seems we are designed with a primal hunger
for love and wisdom inside us.
And if -- like an orphaned kitten -- we were weaned from that
First Source too soon (for whatever reason, in whatever way)...
we will probably go through life "sucking wool"
(an expression used for that cat-behavior described above).
But wouldn't it be better to just humbly acknowledge that hunger
in us, and then apply ourselves to having the actual love-wisdom-nutrition
we crave... instead of settling for a mouth full of fabric-fuzz?
Fuzz is distraction. Fuzz is hyper-consumption.
Fuzz is avoidance and addiction.
Fuzz is the desperate and futile attempt,
to get full and wise, from cotton sheets.
Our mind fixates.
It wants something to interpret, ponder and solve,
because that's what it was designed to do.
No differently than our heart wants to pump blood,
because that's what it was designed to do.
Our mind's function is to be aware.
In addition to creating survival strategies,
our mind also reflects and considers.
That is the wisdom -- the sapience --
in our species' name, homo sapiens.
Whether fixations come from a felt separation from love/safety,
or from a felt separation from knowledge/truth...
...since the mind is going to be mesmerized by something...
why not make sure the object(s) of our fixation are:
(a) CHOSEN by us; and
(b) WORTHY of the life-force that all fixations cost?
I'm hesitant to publish this, because of how negatively 'fixation' is regarded.
But I'm sharing it because I believe those who feel compelled
to do with their minds or imaginations, what athletes and olympians
do with their bodies -- which is train to gold standards -- those thinkers
and creators are needed. Even if the market doesn't yet say so, Life says so.
Everything we seek, is found in our reclaimed mind.
I'd love your feedback on fixation and obsessive thought.
Is it essentially bad? Does it have redeeming virtues?
If so, what might they be?