Too much gravel

AN ENIGMA

“It’s too much. It’s way too much. It’s way too grating.” Love You Still

This is a complex bitch. On the one hand we see the grating quality of repetition, in this case the continual playing of the Tom Waits album. It’s driving “Love You Still” crazy. On the other hand we see that he still loves the cafe. But how is this so? How can his love conquer the grating repetition?

What we’re dealing with here are two conflicting emotions, love and aggravation. In the absence of any further specification – his love for the food, his love for the waiter – the issue of the conflicting emotions has to be resolved on their own grounds. Invoking rational principles, like his love for the food or the waiter, are “ultra vires” (a little Latin there meaning, literally, “outside the walls” but, metaphorically, meaning irrelevant to the present concern). So how is the dilemma to be resolved?

Psychology, of course, is mute in respect to resolving the issue. Lacking coherent traction since it is itself little more than a behaviouristic study of behaviour guided by emotion, psychology is impotent in respect to resolving the dilemma. Similarly, there exists no rational criterion to adjudicate the dilemma since, in the same way, to establish preference on the basis of rational criteria pre-supposes the presence of precisely that which is lacking in the present case. In other words, the issue of the conflicting emotions of love and aggravation lack an adjudicatory cognitive core.

So how is the dilemma to be resolved? It’s hard to say. It’s an enigma.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!