Monday 13 October 2003

Pic of the day: Snacks!

Temptations

As you can see from the color code, I am not talking about my personal temptations ... then it would be bright red for sure! I am such a sinner ... in my dreams. Well, I guess I'm not exactly a saint anyway either. But that's beside the point, at least by a little.

While fussing over my NaNoWriMo characters, I gave some thought to this. The male protagonist is deeply troubled because of what he perceives as his demonic nature, which manifests in nightly dreams and also in destructive urges in waking life. He doesn't actually do anything qualified evil; on the contrary, he goes further than most to counter and avoid the evil inside, because he fears that it would overwhelm him and turn him into a full demon if given a chance. It is a good life – for those around him. But a life in fear, in fear of himself.

Apart from that, I stand by my claim that the story is not autobiographic in the least. ^_^*

Seriously, though, there are probably a good number of people like that. In the beautiful comic Strangers in Paradise the main male character, David, is a former gang leader who has repented his sins and become a Christian. He is unfailingly good and nice ... but after a long time, we learn that he still has the Evil Inside, and this is probably why he has gone so far in the opposite direction. I knew it! I even said it almost a year before it was revealed. Because there are people like that.

***

For most of us, most of the time, temptations are far more trivial than rape murder & arson. Snacks, for instance. Most temptation research at American universities has focused on snacks, although I will argue that the results can probably be transferred to porn (for males) and cakes (for females) with only marginal adjustments.

One important find is that if you place a bowl on snacks on the desk where someone works, they are more likely to eat it than if you just tell them that there are snacks in the next room. The actual sight of the snacks is far more tempting than the abstract knowledge of the snacks. Smell adds greatly to the temptation. Also taste ... if you taste one snack, it is much easier to gobble down a whole lot of them.

Temptations will also distract you from whatever task you are doing. Students working with snacks on their desks but without eating them will make more errors.

Temptations are cumulative. Being exposed to several temptations makes it more likely to cave in to one of them.

Temptations work over time. The longer you are exposed to temptation, the greater the chance that you will eventually give in to it. In short, willpower is an exhaustible resource.

Willpower can be restored by pleasant activities. Students playing computer games have a much easier time resisting snacks than students doing boring mental exercises.

Willpower can be trained like a muscle. However, this is a long-term process. Exposing yourself to temptation for a long time is likely to lead you to give in to it. Resisting temptation will make you stronger only if you have time to restore your willpower before facing the temptation again. Of course, this is the same with muscles: Running until you collapse is not a great training strategy. For some reason people seem to think temptations are abstract and not really real. Boy are they wrong. These things follow laws of nature just like anything else. You can pull yourself together but not forever, just like when running or lifting weights.

***

Unlike gravity (I think), temptation can be eliminated by thorough understanding. This is however not something you do with an act of will. It is not like deciding to lift your hand, which you can do practically anywhere and anytime. It is more like deciding to get a master's degree in economics. Sure, most healthy people could do that eventually, but most never do, and are perfectly satisfied with less.

I have mentioned before in these pages the Hindu mental exercise for young men, to imagine women's breasts in detail. Now you may think that is the very height of pointless exhortation, as young men are all too likely to dwell on this already. But we are not talking about the skin. The man is supposed to visualize the arteries and veins, the milk glands and canals, and the slick yellowish fatty tissues that pad out the human udder. By imprinting this understanding in his mind, a man can achieve the fabled Immunity to Breasts.

Back to snacks and cakes. If you are a bit talented with a pencil, you may take time to draw yourself the way you will look after a few years of fatty snacks, and conversely a picture of how you would look after a healthy diet and regular exercise. (You may also try photoshop if you feel more comfortable with that.) Spend a little time before each meal, considering these two pictures. Just a couple minutes earnestly studying the pictures, that's all. (NB! Don't do this if anyone, even your worst enemy, has mentioned that you might suffer from anorexia. Or your life might be forfeit.)

For those enslaved by fashion and beauty, there is the Buddhist meditations on the decomposition of the human body. In it, the student describes to himself the various stages a corpse goes through after death. It is pretty macabre, if I may say so. I have read one of those exercises and it is not for the depressed. But it sure is a counter- measure against the human tendency to identify with the body and glorify it. (It will also probably encourage cremation, but that's beside the point.)

I hope you see the point here. We are tempted because of our perspective, or lack thereof. We cave in to temptation because even though our brain cortex knows better, the understanding does not go deep enough. We may think we know, but we don't really know.

There is a famous story about Jesus, whom we Christians call Lord and Christ. When he was hanging on the cross, being slowly tortured to death, he prayed: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" This is indeed normally the case with all sin. When we seem to act against our better knowledge, we simply don't know it deeply enough. We know it like a lesson studied for an exam, not like a lesson learned for our own life. If you learn about California in geography class, you learn in one way. If you are going to move to California next month, you learn in a very different way. Until we have the "moving" knowledge, we are very vulnerable to temptation.

***

In short then, there are many ways to manage temptation. You can compromise, give in to some temptations in order to strengthen yourself against others. (NB: Your God may really really resent this. Check first.) You can train your willpower by repeated exposure to temptation, followed by retreat and restoration / reward before the next training session. You can resist temptation with your eyes on the goal you can attain. Or you can meditate on the folly of what you are tempted to, and the folly of the ego to which it appeals.

Or you can close your eyes and jump into it, and regret later. I've been there and done that too, may God have mercy on my black and scarred soul ... Well, a bit singed anyway.