18 May 2009

Under the Elms


Desire, dear reader, is a strange phenomenon.  There is no reason why some attract a good deal of it, while some attract relatively little.  There is no reason why some choose to act on it, while some do not.  Choosing not to act is an active choice, and it's unclear why some seem able to make that active choice, while some seem not.  Why it should be that some people, experiencing desire, should possess the ability to think coolly in another part of themselves, to weigh up and hence resist, while some do not, is a great mystery to me.  Why it is that we should choose to control desire, even when not controlling might be greatly relieving, puzzles me.  That we are able to do so, I find extraordinary.

On a totally different note, I wish I had a name that could be made into a cool Russian diminutive.  Misha, Natasha, Masha, Olenka, Tonya:  cool all.  But Emily cannot, I suspect, be shortened this way, even when it's Emilia, which is what I imagine it would be in Russian.  Yet again my name fails me!  I knew my parents should have named me Catherine.

3 comments:

alexvicegrab said...

What about Mila? That'd probably be a dimminutive of Emilia... no?

Vespertina Quies said...

I'll take it!

I like it, and I think it suits me. I shall demand that Olga call me that, and it will start a slowly growing trend...

Incubus said...

Plunging into the pool of desire has two components: one is social, when a person lives at parent's house, or is surrounded by people that knows the family, it is difficult to jump. If this is not the case, the only explanation I find is genetic ;)