Oooh, I Need a Dirty Woman, Oooh, I Need a Dirty Girl

Right, now that I've got your attention... (Well, ish. There is actually a sort of reason for the title, apart from it coming from an awesome Floyd song.)

Here's something I don't think I've ever discussed here. I'm somewhat of a nihilist - I see most things as concepts, as ideas, and not much more. Logically, these ideas and concepts don't actually exist, but we act and behave as if they are, because it's easier, and helps us explain what's going on when there is no explanation. Mental software, if you will.

Just by reading this, you're doing it (yes, I know the concept of a reader is ludicrous, but run with it). These words don't actually mean anything, they're just symbols, that you then give a meaning to based on what you've been taught. Fairly simple, and the upshot is exactly the same, as long as you and I have been taught the same thing. Dictionaries are powerful tools.

That's all fairly menial, not really all that complicated. So let's take it a bit further. Time to use the E word: emotion (insert generic dramatic music). Science has shown that emotional states are caused by some sort of chemical balance/imbalance that's far too complicated for me to enough imagine understanding, but the theory is simple enough. This is scientific fact, not too controversial, admittedly, but fact nonetheless, and so the only idiots who would take it on are the Bible Belt preachers.

But "happiness," "sadness," "fear," "lust" (I said there was a reason for the title), and all the rest of them are all, logically, concepts. "Happiness" doesn't exist as anything else but an interpretative state - like words. The chemicals themselves are just there, and our body reacts accordingly, based on how it interprets these chemicals. That's all very well and fine, if not at all romantic. That hot girl isn't what causes the lust directly, she just causes the chemicals to move around a bit.

Therefore, it must be wrong to say "I am happy" or "I am sad" or any other feeling. I can't be "happy," it doesn't exist, it's just that the chemicals were in a state that was pleasurable. This one act of logic pretty much destroys the concept of emotion, turning us all into fleshy Daleks.

Except, obviously, apart from all the stupid fighting we get into, we have, sometimes, saved the odd life.

I struggled with this for a while, like a lot of things, it didn't make sense. If "happiness"doesn't exist, what the hell was that drug I'd taken when I saw the pyramids through Cairo's hazy horizon?

Then something hit me while I was picking up skittles. Metaphorically speaking, of course, none of the pins or balls have hit me yet.

What if we consider "happiness," not as an emotion, but as analogy. Doesn't make it any more real, but lets us play around with it a bit more. A bit like melting some weaponry down, and turning them into something useful. I can't explain why we let these ideas affect us, or rather why we consider them as something more than concepts, but we have to. Even Hitler felt something, not nice things, but things nonetheless. I can't explain this paradox. Someone probably can, and I'm sure a psychiatrist would probably say this whole thing was a load of - in the words of Ford Prefect - dingo's kidneys. But if I consider these emotions as analogies of what is actually going on, it's suddenly a lot easier to justify it all.

When I say "I am happy," it's an analogy for the chemical state that's being caused, and my unconscious willingness to accept it. Makes things much easier, and means that I can actually still use these concepts do describe myself. No need to break any annoying habits that I've picked with them (like learning to stop saying "thank God" when I was old enough to have picked the saying up, but then realise what I was actually saying). The best thing about it is that, to all intents and purposes, I hadn't got anywhere, just seeing things in a slightly different way. And that realisation made me happy. Oh, see what I did there?!

Right, now that that's solved, where that dirty girl gone...