Satiation begins at the point halfway between the start and the end. In the same space as the half-length of a piece of string, it's at the scene where the empty stomach, the hungry mind, or the craving soul, gets its fill and feels no more. Where the more that comes comes at a cost over the course of whatever activity unfolds to the folding point of diminishing returns.
Satisfaction, in essence, is a package on the tilt with its own planned obsolescence. Unleashing the beast within without is fraught with the expectation that you will eventually find that wall of wallowing in too much of a good thing. Having it all is having too much and leaves an emptiness that claws back in a reflux of negativity, regret and pause.
To satisfy is to please or supply someone or something with what they want or need. But, much like a singing sock puppet's theme song, it never ends. It just goes on and on, my friend.
Listen to the kick from The Rolling Stones sinking in "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction":
When I'm drivin' in my car
and a man comes on the radio
he's tellin' me more and more
about some useless information
supposed to fire my imagination.
What starts out as a good thing clogs up the mind, stuffs it with the hash table from a German/English dictionary and lets fly with the sensation of turning left.
The snort of promise is the placebo. It floods the mushy brain with endorphins of bloody hope and desire. It feels good because it is good. It's the riding off into the sunset. And sunsets lead over the horizon toward the setting Sol.
The satisfactory feeling, that warm glow of accomplishment or completion is the nocebo. Swing for the miss, an evil counterpart laced with the dire wont to fail. Failure, after all, is the only option after the high. It's Sisyphean in and of itself.
Between the feel good and the feel not so good lives a struggle point. The magic kingdom what exists between fractions of a second's asphyxiating euphoria. Getting there is the best part. And the worst. It's of the whole.
Written on Sunday, 13 March 2011