Thursday, July 19, 2012

Deep Thoughts With Philip Roth


Blind Spot Syndrome: the unaccountable desire to maintain top cruising speed while avoiding any sort of unnecessary gravitational pulls from other traveling objects in a closed system.
For example, while walking through an uncrowded sidewalk, one increases speed at all costs to overcome another pedestrian without any practical goal being achieved. Is Walker A (protagonist) in such a hurry? No. Is Walker B (perceived antagonist) moving so slowly and blocking large swaths of sidewalk?  No.  And yet Walker A increases velocity in order to stay outside any minor draft of Walker B.  I had a similar experience the other day while driving, albeit one that perhaps matches up to the lofty title a touch cozier.  Minor road rage ensued as I found a car driving for an extended period in my blind spot.  Every time I'd speed up, the car would speed up. Every time I'd slow, it'd slow. I thought someone was winding me up.  The competitive urge is an odd bird.  The urge to maintain control of one's immediate surrounding, less odd on the face of it, is far odder when you look at it closely. There is no "controllable."  Surfing teaches us that, if nothing else.

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