This blog post inspired in part by The Charisma Myth, to be released February 2012.

When I am acting through my highest intentions and values then I am most clear-minded.

When I am not acting through my highest intentions and instead succumb to social pressure then I become prone to rationalization.

The phenomenon of liking someone because of rationalization is intimately related to succumbing to social pressure.

When we like something it is because we have decided that it has value.  Instead of dictating value from the top-down, we receive our values from the bottom-up.

Thus we are prone to cognitive dissonance, liking rationalization, when we accept someone else’s values.  We decide that we like that person because we took their values.  By definition, that is what liking is: we like things that match our values.

When I was decorating my apartment someone told me “Make sure to get a night table! You’ll want it for your books, for a lamp…”

So I went to IKEA and I got the stand for my books.  It was a pain in the ass to install and I basically fucked it up, but I installed it by my bed.

Later, when rearranging my apartment, I realized that I could move my bed next to a bench that’s built-in to my space… and do away with the need for a night table.

In a spiritual sense maybe what to say is: I got caught up in how it manifested rather than intention. By focusing on the concrete specifics of the intention (form) rather than the function… I failed to grasp the optimal solution immediately.

The relationship between form and function bears further study. Recommendations?