Purposely

“Sir, he is purposely trying to disturb me”…..

This is how we used to try to tell our teacher when we were kids at the school. We were yet to find familiarity with the better option of ‘deliberately’ which would have sounded better. Some of us did shift to ‘wantonly’ since we still felt a bit unsure about ‘deliberations’! As adults, we only deliberate, but seldom reach a practical solution!

When a purpose is purported to be ascribed to an emotional want being wantonly fulfilled, the others around feel fuzzy about the purpose!

Well, let us not delude ourselves into thinking that we are trying our wits with words. The purpose is, to look at the purpose of certain attitudes, especially the negative ones. I would not entirely rule out the adverse effects of imposing upon ourselves, even a few positive traits!

The problem starts with a chance discovery of some purpose getting fulfilled quite incidentally! The baby discovered that crying intensely seems to get the attention of its mother much easily (languages or even its existence is yet to be known). Over a period of time, crying gets into the very chemistry so much that it can’t be helped any more! Starting with this harmless thing called ‘crying’ for no (apparent) reason, children cultivate into adamancy, irritability, stubbornness, anger, insulting or abusive language etc. As adults, the ‘purpose’ of these negative tools get sophisticated, but now, they have come to stay!

It is in this back drop, that I rejoiced an innocent question, quite aptly using the child-like mind’s meaning of the word ‘purpose’.

It would be only fair to take the reader straight to the question now.

Psn(16th January, 2011)

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArMWUNk1bF32rNInJEXarK2QHQx.;_ylv=3?qid=20110115154911AAfuEgj

GS: What Is The Purpose of jealously...?
...from a evolutionary stand point? everything we do and everything that ever was has a purpose and this is painfully true with our behavior and feelings from a evolutionary stand point. How (evolutionary speaking) could be benefit from having jealously? We are jealous of people who have something we do not, something we wish we had (attractiveness, power ect...) well when you think about it when it comes to these things it's important to evolution. we need someone in power to guide us, we need attractive people for mating... yah know? so why (EVOLUTIONARILY speaking) would we have a feeling to destroy or harm these other humans that hold such an important part in keeping the species strong?

My answer:
Are we not mixing up logic and emotions?

The moment we look for "purpose" we are looking for the "logical" reason.

Yes, evolution/preservation of species needs that mutual attraction. Nature does that. Only human beings over-do it.

When it comes to jealousy or laughter, it is a manifest form of intuitive aspect of mind, called emotion. Emotions do not obey logic. (That is why when a kid says to the mom "Today I won't wear blue skirt, come what may!", the mother pleads for logic. Mother has lots of logic for that blue ... may be it is the one in the queue. May be it needs just one more use and then a wash, maybe that blue would withstand cold/rain/climate. But all that is usually mom's responsibility!). Still, there is a subtle purpose for jealousy. When this negative emotion seeks a manifest form, something intolerable is sought to be put to end, showing that jealousy. Beyond this point, we cannot satisfy any 'purpose' to convince a non-jealous person.