This week less will be more!
The more you study…The more you know. The more you know. The more you forget, the more you forget, the less you know, So why study? The answer my friends is simple – the quest for more. There is even a Bollywood film by the name – Dil Maange More.
I always wanted to have more of everything. I remember the time when my mum used to bring potato chips from the CITI Bakery (they were the best then) and keep in the snack box at home. In that by-gone era, I was a voracious reader of thriller fiction. Often, that would occupy my time and with the best accompaniment that one could have in those days – A bag of Potato chips from the best bakery that was. I would grab the bag of chips and multitask, read, and munch, and when it was over – I would scrape the bag for more – You can’t eat just one? Well, I no longer wonder if that maxim is true.
When More begets More!
We are all made like that. We all want more of everything. Well, not everything, just the pleasurable bits – when our senses our tickled. Sometimes they are tricked, like when you wear a Dior Perfume, or a corset! But that is not the rule!
Natural I guess; we are born to avoid pain and grab whatever is pleasurable and forbidden – by God, nature, or fellow human beings. When it is forbidden, the pleasure is that much greater is it not? Is that why cheating, fraud, robbery, is much more of a thrill than the routine and politically correct way of the world for the same outcomes?
Remember the story of Adam and Eve? Adam and Eve were allowed to roam free in the garden of Eden, in their birthday suits – though neither birthdays nor suits were in vogue – but forbidden to eat a fruit of the garden that is today Rs: 200 plus a kilo – the apple. The story goes, that Eve was tempted to eat one – and that’s not an easy feat – and then found a new kind of pleasure, which no human being has been able to resist since then or wanted less of.
It’s a universally acknowledged law of nature that the less you have of something pleasurable, the more you want. Strangely, when its pleasurable, more begets the desire for more – money, love, the other pleasures of the world and even something as abstract as peace of mind. A good example is money. It completely explains this paradox, the more you have, the more you want, but even the less you have the more you want.
There are other simple examples Like Tobacco, whisky, and hair – There is one exception that I see among generation Y! – It’s clothes – where less is more. But I guess, there is a corollary – the naked eye only enjoys the sight of a half-naked body!
When even less is too much!
None of us want anything that is painful – injections, fractures, sickness, emotional hurt, poverty, aggression, bullying, rejection or hate. I always wanted less of these. In fact, I wanted none or the barest feasible minimum. With anything that hurts our senses, even less is too much. Like when you have a tooth ache. Its unbearable for two reasons – you are deprived of gastronomic pleasure, and its an unbearable assault on your pain threshold. You really thrash about to hold it in. Then the Dentist tells you, you must do a root canal. Capisce? More pain is coming. But its ok. Because more can mean less. After. And I could return to my gastronomic pleasures. So, for the sake of Pleasure, is more pain acceptable? Everything is relative. More or less! And a few are close relatives!
More of Life!
The rule of more to applies to life itself. When you have cancer, or a terminal illness that you are aware of, and you know your life is nearing the end, or when you are about to drown, your desire to live is the strongest, and you always want more of it, no matter how hard it is. The strange paradox is suicide; when people consumed by their own distress can’t take more of life. Some paradoxes cannot be explained at all. Life wants to give you more, but you will have none of it!
So, is better? Or is less good? You may have heard the expression – there is no gain without pain. Everything you desire more of, has a benefit and a consequence. So, while the hope of reaping the pleasurable benefits of your desire may be temporarily paramount, the fear of the consequences of your indulgence will always act as a restraining force – unless you ignore it. These two opposite forces automatically create equilibrium, a balance, between more and less.
A friend and I had been to Manipal recently for a meeting. Fellowship followed the meeting at a cute little restaurant, many of which dot the Manipal landscape. Other friends too were present and some of us were amazed at the order he placed – grilled vegetarian sandwiches with double cheese, a plate of French fries with a liberal sprinkling of salt, an ice cream milk shake. The rest of us were more restrained in our orders, and after we explained our restrained ordering behavior, and the long-term hazards of such a rich order, he rationalized – I only indulge on the weekend – The hope of a benefit weighed more than the fear of a consequence! And he achieved his own weighted (pun intended) balance.
We now even have a supermarket called More. Once you go in, you come out with more… more than you originally envisaged buying! Try it. This is not an advertisement for their wares, but a human experiment!
Take a big bag along. A big one! Plastic Carry Bags have been banned, because there was more of them.
If you have enjoyed reading this and want more, you will have to wait until next week!
Disclaimer
This Article is written in the lighter vein with tongue-in-cheek. It hopes to bring a smile to your face, and you must not ascribe motives to its contents. There is no connection to events and characters in real life and if perchance you find a connect with any such real-life event or character, rest assured its purely coincidental or just a mirage!
