Research

You never know what you'll find when you open a book.

I'm reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (Harper Collins, 2008), and even though it should be a dry treatise on the psychological causes of our insistence on repeating the same mistakes, I find it a most enjoyable experience.

Maybe it's because Dan Ariely shows that our instinctual understanding (or at least my instinctual understanding, as writer) of human motivations and urges, is not as flawed as we might fear. And that the extreme reactions we like to showcase in our stories, at the point of crisis, are not as far-fetched as a cool, rational mind would like to make them.

And maybe it's because the author of Predictably Irrational is himself an excellent writer, a rare gem in the world of academic prose. He doesn't just provide information, and the names of the researchers involved in the experiments he describes, he entertains his public with the work he obviously loves and performs with a passion.

What have I learned so far in this book? That expectations do trump reality -- your senses will be betrayed by your mind. That ownership gives things more value than they're worth -- value is not a static, objective concept, but a scale that depends on variables as intangible as the moment when you decide how much you care for the thing you're considering selling or buying.

I can't help but wonder, as I read this book, how a Zen master would walk through life. Would he be as predictably irrational, or would his rational self govern him at each step? Could a human attain enough self-control to stop and consider every decision with a quiet, if not cool mind, before launching himself into reckless action?

Some days, I wish I was that Zen master. Other days... I just don't know. Whenever you gain something, you also lose something. And the grass is always greener...