What plus what equals appetite?

It’s early – daylight but no sun yet. I wait wearily for Henry to empty himself. At times he’s quick, at other times finicky, sniffing for a suitable spot. Why, I wonder. I’m the same way with missive topics. Sometimes I know, bang, and get started, at other times I finger possibilities like a fussy shopper. Sooner begun, sooner done, right? Get on with it!

Henry’s dithering – and mine – get me thinking. Appetite’s a mystery. Sometimes we know what we want, sure as shootin’, at other times we’re uncertain. The same goes for what book to read, music to listen to, food to eat, etc.

Some process produces our decisions. Consultations are held, a consensus forms. Who participates? Who’s in charge? Compulsion, Reason, Expectations, Memory, Strength, Mood, History each weighs in. “I know what I like” only sounds simple.

Science has been gnawing this mystery at least since Aristotle. What’s today called “cognitive science” originated in the thirties and forties of the last century (Vassar College offered the first degree in the discipline – the things you learn). In a sense, anybody who thinks thinks about it. Why do I desire what I desire, decide what I decide? Do I approve of my decision? If not, what’s going on?

Self-scrutiny was discouraged in my boyhood. Any discussion of oneself was taken for vanity. Thoreau’s humorous assertion – “I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well” – would have appalled my proper parents. My hobby of self-spelunking arose from a need to know. What did I think? What did I really think? Was my thinking sound? Without this information, how could I choose my road?

The more I know about myself, the less I know. This is both frustrating and exhilarating. Each exploration generates fresh questions. Henry too might write a tome about what he’s sniffing were he so inclined. Mostly I’m self-taught. The self I explore resembles everyone’s, I’m convinced.

Some of my appetites stump me. Consider this one, precise and insistent. After Jane and I lunch together, watching a lecture, and before my nap, I treat myself to a candy. Not just any candy, one Reese’s peanut butter cup. Why only one is obvious – I could down a dozen – but why this exact confection at this exact moment? What might language, perception, memory, reasoning, emotion, linguistics, psychology, biology, neuroscience, anthropology, or who-knows-what reveal about my choice?

Crossroads discover us. We are what we choose. My unfathomability has been my university, tuition-free. The Delphic Oracle’s instruction, “Know thyself,” while impossible, bends us in the direction of awareness. The better we know ourselves, the less objectionably we behave – for we come to see ourselves as outcomes, not causes, passengers in lives over which we’ve scant control.

Appetite is a complex calculus for all creatures, but only humans regularly get it wrong, craving what sickens us. That’s because intelligence makes us stupid. We rape, murder, rage, steal, pollute, devour more than we need. Other creatures satisfy themselves with a sufficiency, humans’ brains prod us to consume more. Henry (presumably) knows why he chooses what he chooses, I have no idea – and often mistake my true motive.

Confusion makes humans the most complex, interesting, and dangerous species. The more we think, the less know where we are or who or why. We may want what doesn’t exist (ecstasy, radiance, revenge, etc.), at least for long. There seems a fair chance we will destroy ourselves with all our good ideas.

Henry eventually settles on a place just right. I keep looking.