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I remember taking a “purity test” back when we were all on livejournal spilling our guts and taking quizzes to find out which Muppet I am most like. I don’t remember being told that I was the purest thing around. I really wondered how perverse that made me. I still don’t feel pure, but upon recent thought, I’m not even sure I know what it is.
Perverse is defined as being turned away from what is good: improper, corrupt, and wrongheaded.
Don’t we all feel this way sometimes?
In fact, it feels like it is all over the place these days. A search on Google News for “perverse” in the last day of news turned up over a thousand results. The commonality of something isn’t a reason to claim appropriateness, but it doesn’t bring any clarity. It is tough to make our own judgment calls in this type of climate. Here, though, it can be a blessing to grow older, as experience brings more and more things to compare and ponder. In my head I do have a rule of thumb.
Perversion is what has hurt you as it will probably hurt someone else; it is what your mind may accept but your heart rejects.
Easy nuff?
But…you see it and you know something or someone that is perverse, deeply perverse. You think, I’ve thought that, I’ve fantasized that, but I’ve not actually acted on it. This is of course bothersome. Are we not all perverse?
I’ve thought up a litmus test:
Be alone. Feel alone. Now add what you are questioning. If it hurts, it’s perverse. If it interrupts, you have some more thinking to do. If it enhances, embrace it.
Thoughts?
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[ apprehensive, becoming..., confusion, cultures, doubt, fear, getting-to-know-yourself, google, guts, head_space, life-tips, panicked, perceptions, personal_growth, soul-searching ]6 Responses to “A thought about perversion”
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January 19th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
At first sight they are opposites. The mind strives for objectivity – to observe reality as it is – whereas, the heart strives to have subjective feeling for others. Some say that the mind perceives, while the heart experiences.
Spiritualists would suggest that our task should be to unite our perceptions and our experiences - our mind and heart. It seems to me that the alternative is to be a slave to one or the other rather than using them as compliments to one another. This “union” does not depend on age or experience, as your entry suggests, as much as it depends on maturity.
Why does mind and heart need to be opposed? Even if they are, should they always be? Doesn’t that divide our being at our core? My hunch is that we should seek balance and not opposition. Truth is found in both mind and heart. It is not unique to one. Analyzation, not nullification.
There is perversion of mind as much as there is perversion of heart. And I do not believe that perversion necessarily is determined subjectively by the harm it may cause. It is what it is already objectively.
For those of you quick to dismiss the spiritual angle on the argument, I would point you in the direction of a University of Michigan study (and others) that correlates healthy minds to healthy hearts.
Be of one mind, and one heart. Someone said that somewhere, right?
January 19th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I did my best to try and locate the University of Michigan study you mentioned. If you have a link to some information on it could you please post it…
In saying that perversion “is what your mind may accept but your heart rejects,” I do hope I wasn’t conveying the separation of the two, but hopefully a useful indicator or tool. People often time forget that they have an emotional/spiritual side to rely on. I wanted to encourage readers to remember that the approval of the mind, isn’t the approval of the heart, and vice versa. I will concede that maybe we must also think that if the heart accepts something and your mind rejects, this too may be an indicator of perversion.
There is an interplay that might be the most important to consider when turning inward to consider life’s perversions; thoughts may enter through the heart or the mind and lead to the other, but not both at the same time. We must understand this communication and the experience. Often, it is in this transition that we may experience what is most important.
This feels right to my heart but it is still working on the translation for my mind.
January 21st, 2008 at 3:04 am
I feel like this has gotten way out of hand. Perhaps I think that, because I have never thought of perversion as an issue of “mind,” “heart” or “soul,” but purely as a issue of “body.” Perverting an idea is abstraction mounted on the abstract. Useless to talk about and yet more aimless to dwell upon. Its like trading your money, which isn’t based on the gold standard, in your own time zone, then lending it to a bank when their morning markets open–netting a huge interest–just so it can be traded back to you when your markets open. Its just an abstract thing, being abstracted, ending in abstraction.
If I think on Frankenstein’s Creature, then I think about the perversion of the body, and perhaps science. When I think on the use of synthol in Bodybuilding, I think of the perversion of the athlete. I don’t think on steroids and talk of the perversion of the sport, because to me, to do so isn’t to say anything at all. Baseball isn’t perverted because of the Mich Report, since there isn’t anything real that is baseball.
I guess I just don’T see how things pervert the “mind” and “heart,” since there isn’t really anything present that is actively corrupted. Just abstracts. Nothing that can’t be wholly dismissed. And, if the discussion is about ideas turned action, then it would seem the perversion is in that translation itself, and not in its manifestation in the world. But, here I find myself asking, is tattooing perverted. Or piercing. Well, yes and no. Yes as it alters the body in such a way as to no longer be what it is, or should develop naturally to be. Yet no, in that no drastic change if created, and it is some times reversible, not to mention that the act and the result, don’t hamper the body in its normal processes and functioning.
Hm.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I always have to remind myself of something…
Nothing is actually divided. We simplify subjects into categories and groups, for the ease of study and conversation. This “breakdown” is important but it can be very important to know that there are perpetual overlaps, despite the possible apparent differences.
So when going through all these thought remember mind+body+heart+etc…= YOU
February 1st, 2008 at 1:06 pm
What has gotten “out of hand”? I disagree freakzero, I think perversion is not limited to the body. I am not sure if Justin has revised his position between from his first comments (which I do not think the same) and his second (where I do agree). There is not a fundamental separation between mind and heart. They are interconnected and provide ultimately (if not always readily) a core harmony.
February 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I guess the question I have in this conversation is when you say heart are you speaking of emotions, soul or spiritualness. I think the term I would choose is emotions. The heart is an actual functioning muscle, while emotions are more abstract and seem to convey what you are talking about. I may be confused as to how you are defining spiritual as well. The Rev Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson are spiritual, but you could never convince me it translates into a healthy mind. I would also say many with healthy minds have trouble with emotions.