There are so many things that confuse me…

I, even I, confuse me. I don’t know the half of myself.

For example, years ago I was browsing through old movies and found the 1947 cinematic flop The Sin of Harrold Diddlebock. I watched it, then rewatched it again and again. I probably saw it every other day for a month. But I have no idea why. The acting is farcical but not all laugh-inducing. The plot is far-fetched, to say the least. The basic morals are “‍a good idea can conquer all odds‍”, “‍give a smart man his freedom‍”, and “‍when in a bind, get plastered and gamble wildly‍”. I don’t sympathize with any of the characters, I don’t daydream of anything from it, it has little or no perceptible appeal. Yet since that first month I’ve probably watched that show at least four or five times a year. Why do I like it so much?

Another example comes from potato chips. Give me a bag of potato chips and I’ll eat them all, right down to the last fragments, without stopping. I’ll do this even if I don’t like their flavor and my stomach is so full it hurts. But take the same bag, pour some into a bowl and then put the bag away and I’ll often eat only a few chips, then leave the rest in the bowl. I have absolutely no idea why this happens. It’s as if there is some little neuron that screams “‍empty the bag now!‍” but doesn’t really care about bowls one way or another.

My life is full of these little mysteries. I don’t know where they come from or why they are here. But here they are, and I find it fun at times to sleuth them out.

It’s my guess that everyone has their own share of oddities like these. And I suppose that there are explanations for them all. Why do I think they all have explanations? There’s another thing I don’t know about myself. Mysteries never cease.