Appreciation

[A. G. Maisey]

Well, it seems as if during the past week, nobody has had any further thoughts on the matter under discussion here.

Perhaps we have exhausted the subject.

I've read through all of the posts more than a few times, and the message that I am getting seems to come down to this:-

1) --- our appreciation of anything can never take place except against the background of previous experience

2) --- this previous experience creates a matrix that we use either consciously or sub-consciously to evaluate the subject of our appreciation

3) --- the way in which the item that we evaluate is appreciated has an effect upon our emotional state

4) --- the effect upon our emotional state is beneficial to our overall well-being.

If this is so, then it is certain that we can never evaluate, nor consider an object in a purely subjective fashion. We are, if you will, unavoidably locked into evaluation of the object against everything that has previously entered our experience. We may try to be subjective, but our subjectivity is inevitably expressed in an objective fashion.

In other words, we're all hooked on "the story".

As I think is clear from the postings to this thread, that "story" is a little bit different for each of us.

But what is the purpose of this arguably self delusionary process?

Maybe Rick has summed it up very precisely as "self medication".

Does anybody have any further thoughts on this matter?