Wandering and wondering

The following is related to a series of rather improper thoughts I have been having lately (or not so lately). ‘Improper’ on a number of counts I guess but here improper just because it’s seemingly such a non-social way of viewing people and their behaviours because I’m wondering whether people are just ‘made’ in a particular way – fixed and unchanging and if they change – it’s almost as though they were ‘meant’ to change like some almost non-conscious creature.

….

Every now and again I wonder: so I like wandering around in the forests, and I really love nothing half as much as wandering around a forest (there are some things that I may have liked even better in connection to walking around forests, like living in one up on the hills, but that’s not the point) but then I always end up asking myself, ‘but who wouldn’t?!’ Reluctantly and with disbelief of course I have to admit that there are people/morons who would probably choose walking around in a mall over walking around in a forest. I like to think that people who don’t like walking around in a forest don’t deserve any further thought.

But then I wonder about something else. It’s nothing new, and I myself have had similar versions of the same thought erupt in my head on different occasions: but maybe they can’t help themselves. Maybe that’s just the way they are made. They love mall-hopping and they love shopping but they hate walking around in a forest or they hate splashing up and down a creek. I know too that there may be some who love walking and trekking even more than I do and who also love shopping with a vengeance. But maybe, they too are just the way they are. They are somehow given to liking this odd combination of things. They just can’t help being the way they are.

What would make people love shopping or walking around in a mall? I do of course love book browsing (and it’s sometimes even better than book buying) but one doesn't ever go to the mall to do that and browsing through/for specific music (something I haven’t done in a long time unless it’s on youtube). But maybe this too is just the way I’m made. I remember that at as a kid I had this horrible fixation for shoes (of all things). It sounds terrible – but I did although I don’t know why considering that the Cinderella fairytale did not appeal to me one whit as a kid (this may have something to do with reading the original Grimm's version, which is quite a nightmare and nothing of a fairytale). I don’t have a shoe obsession anymore although I have the quirky (if not downright silly) habit of looking at the shoes that people wear, and these days even grocery shopping sounds better, much better than any sort of shopping that requires a trip to the mall. But I know of people who love visiting or roaming around in the mall. Why would anyone want to go there?

Yet how on earth can people be asked or forced or made to like the forests? I know of kids who never learnt swimming no matter how many times they were taken to the pool. I know of kids who read books because their friends were reading...and for many years they read and even bought books but stopped reading for fun and pleasure as soon as they 'grew up' and weren't living near those friends any longer. Some people like music, some people are tone-deaf, and some think or like to think that they like music. Some people love climbing mountains and will do anything to climb the next peak and others are afraid of heights and yet others are scared of heights and will keep climbing mountains so as to conquer their fear....

Yet maybe human beings are ‘made’ in these different ways. Someone likes going to the mall. Someone else doesn’t. Maybe it’s got something to do with internal states of being or with something like reflexive knee jerk reactions? Maybe it’s like a purely physical pleasure? Some people like ice-cream and others like chocolate bars. So some idiots like malls and some people like forests and maybe there are some messed up ones who like both. But maybe that’s just the way people are somewhere inside and there’s nothing much one can do about it?

I don’t know whether this is a depressive thought or whether it’s ridiculously insane or whether it's just plain hogwash. ….I can’t help but wonder and wander along this rather fruitless series of 'improper' thoughts.

P.S: I don't know what happened to the birdies at the water fountain. It hasn't gotten that cold but all the birdies seem to have disappeared...