the root cause

the whole thing started with the indecisiveness at home depot yesterday. my cousin needed a lock for her gym locker, couldn't quite decide which one she wanted, and started to get a headache thus. when we stepped out, she also told me she'd tried to decide between two sweaters the other day, and got a headache from not being able to figure out which color she wanted. this was disturbing to me, at some fundamental level. i couldn't quite break it down. i needed to understand the root cause.

today, we tried the 'pick a finger' trick. each time she was faced with choice a and choice b, i'd ask her to pick a finger. in a second the decision was made (though sometimes she thought about which finger to pick as well :), and life was blessed with swift, easy decisions for the day, thus taken. though i was holding up the fingers for her sake, i realized the wonder of it as well: we have finite energy, and we need to pick our battles with care. there's no reason to expend a half-hour's worth on whether one should wear blue or yellow! and sometimes (if not most often), these matters are trivially forgotten, never to be brought back, once a decision is made. does it make sense to deliberate unduly, then?

this afternoon, in the car from san francisco to fremont, i brought this up with my aunt. (she happens to be a clinical psychiatrist, and overflows with wisdom in general.) i knew i could ask her 'what's the root cause?' (an oft-repeated question on my lips these days) and wait for an answer that would satisfy. and so it did. (in brief) she said that indecisiveness (at least the kind we discussed) stemmed from a basic desire to be in control, to make a decision that did not need to be regretted.

[at this point, i was reminded of a's account of stumbling upon happiness. a had mentioned that the author claimed the following: humans had a basic, fundamental desire to be in control. when i asked her what the root cause of that was, a (or the author, rather) didn't have an answer. i mentioned this to my aunt, asking for greater clarity on the same.]

so why did humans have this desire so fundamental for control? digging deeper, it came down to a desire for eliminating uncertainty, an attachment toward greater certainty, and ultimately - a desire to escape the uncertainty of death. hmm. i asked her how one could work on this deep-seated fear, and she mentioned that the skill to surrender was most critical. it was also cultivable. one needed to have faith in the uncertainty somehow, and to this end, prayer was often the surest resort. things were starting to make sense... (and to tie in with the book i read today - the tibetan book of living and dying.)

the conversation went on to individuality and why it was such a basic ingredient of western culture. did american history have something to do with it? what about western schools of religious thought? don't know yet. all in all, i felt that several of my trains of thought came together in this conversation, and my understanding of human nature evolved some. i'm grateful to have such a handy resource so close at hand. too bad i didn't have the guts to become a psychiatrist (though i once did have all the heart to). i'm happy enough to be around such a giver of perspective, as things stand.