So, my font for this post is trebuchet, whose relation to medieval catapults seems a far stretch, but it is pretty and clear. Stopping in yesterday morning with Dr. C., basically to say good-bye, I found to my mingled gratification, embarrassment and dismay, that she'd been reading this silly thing--and could quote it to me. I'd almost forgot that I'd given her the URL. Well, anyway, it proved to both of us that this blog, for what it's worth, is my unvarnished, real, unposed, truthful self. And that, as the heir and emulator of Michel de Montaigne, I take to be a considerable achievment. Anyway, I continue reading Buddhist texts, marvelling at the subtlety and acuity of Mahayana psychology. Nobody else has ever so lucidly analyzed the question of What is Mind? and What is Thought? And in describing Desire and Attachment the Buddhist co-valence of Aversion is light-years ahead of crude Occidental systems of "conflicting" attractions. Let me just try, here, to articulate the basic notion, which Buddhism seems to find so plain and natural, and of which not one Western psychology seems to have the least understanding: In every psychological movement of desire or attraction towards something, there is an equal and opposite instinctual aversion (ranging from cool antipathy to visceral revulsion) from the perceived contrary of the object of desire. E.g., "All is dross that is not Rosalind." This is of fundamental importance in understanding particularly the male psychologies of exclusive homosexuality and exclusive heterosexuality--which, in terms of any Western psychology of desire-only, are inexplicable. I could go on--and I will.....