My recent articles have delved into the nature of human nature covering the subjects of
thinking, believing and seeing, making choices, human life, and forgiveness. [1] This brief article explores the human nature of wishing. As before, I will consult various "authorities" on the matter of wishing.
Poets' Answer
I knew the Bard would not disappoint me. I can still visualize from third-row Broadway orchestra seats Richard Burrton's modern dress version of the Bard's most famous play about Hamlet, an insane prince of Denmark. Who among us does not have on the tip of our tongues "To be, or not to be, that is the question." Hamlet goes on to devoutly wish to consummate with "the fair Nymph Ophelia." At least that is my interpretative, selective quote.
Journalists' Answer
As I have said, I always rely on good journalism as a source for my writings. So, what did I find this time? Before tiring and quitting I must have looked at a hundred or more famous quotes from journalists. Nothing explicit. But what was implicit was very clear: journalists wish there were no online journalism!
Philosophers' Answer
Did I ever hit pay dirt with this source: Florida State University philosophy professor Alfred R. Mele wrote an article about "Aristotle's Wish" to elucidate, among other issues, the role of wishing in making choices and acting ethically. [2] I will leave it at that and move on.
Psychoanalysts' Answer
Once again I turn to Freud. The Freud Museum in London ought to have dug up a Freudian nugget or more about wishing and they did.[3] To Freud a wish is the fulfilment of a dream. Makes sense if you follow Freud since he was a dream specialist. Presumably, there could be positive and negative wishes depending on the dream. A dream about an enemy, e.g., could evoke a dream of death for the enemy. Speaking of which, I have argued that human beings need to avoid two "death wishes for humanity," 1. "things have to get worse before they get better, and 2. There's nothing I can do about it." If these two wishes prevail among most Americans, then humanity is indeed headed to Doomsday of one form or another later this century if not sooner.
Psychologists' Answer
Being myself a psychologist I wish to preempt my many thousands of colleagues. Recall from one of my earlier articles that a former colleague of mine identified all the physical and mental abilities that might be required in toto or in specific ones to do any job.[4] Wishing, of course, was not included simply because it is not an ability. Wishing is a topic concerning species' motivation, which brings me to a true story about rat motivation. As an undergrad major in psychology at Indiana University there was, believe it or not, a rat lab on the top floor of the psych building. The rat psychologists discovered that starving rats wished food far mor than sex (in my abler days I never acted like a starving rat). How did the rat psychologists know this since they couldn't interview the rats? They knew it from their ingenious experimental design in which starving rats were put in an unfamiliar maze where at one bend was a very sexy female rat in heat. They whizzed by her as if she didn't exist.
In Closing
I wish to close this whimsical article with a little bit of more whimsy: Readers, do you wish you had not spent time getting to this closing?
Notes
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