Morose Delectation

“Morose delectation” A Philosophical Reflection

Consider an appetite. It is just an “appetite”. It need not be expressed. I might want to get angry at someone. I might harbor lust towards someone. I simply have appetites. There is no action that gears into the outer world. But even if the whole thing is just “inside” we already orient our thoughts. We orient our appetites.

· So, for example, I orient my anger—without blowing my top—towards someone. I might be moving in daily life nurturing anger towards someone. Each time I see this person I choose to get angry although I do not show it. Deep inside of me I am boiling.

· In terms of lust, I orient my lust towards some persons even without doing anything external. I might go through daily life choosing to be lustful towards particular individuals. So each time I encounter a person who is “my type”, I choose to be lustful although I keep my composure and avoid externalizing this appetite.

There is actually already a choice. Of course we may decide not to show anger. We may decide not to express lust. But we choose to dwell with the appetite. We take delight in the appetite.

· So I am glad (a delectation) with my anger towards this person.

· I am glad (again a delectation) with my lust towards this person.

Consequently, we provoke ourselves. We call ourselves and awaken ourselves to direct the appetite.

· I call myself to be angry at this person.

· I call myself to have lust towards that person.

As we make this call—this “self-call”—if we can term it so, we allow the rising movement of our appetite. We do not check it. We do not keep it in abeyance. We say “yes” to the appetite. We see it arising and we continue to let it arise. We refuse to drive it away and we stick to it.

In our bodies we feel something. The appetite is not totally dis-incarnate. It has a body component. We know this when we are angry. The heart beats, we feel some pulsations and blood pressure rises. We know this in lust. We feel parts of the body “acting out”. The breath gets shorter and the lungs expand irregularly. Already the body gives signals. Psychologists might even add more “psycho-somatic” signals here and there.

Here is where the word “morose” comes in. Morose means “delay”. There is a “delay of time”. What do we delay? We delay the passing away of the appetite. In street basketball we hear the phrase “one to sawa”. The points made start with one and the play continues until the kids get fed up—sawa na. The kids playing basketball delay the end of the game. They do not fix the limit. They might agree on “one to twelve” points. Reaching twelve points they stop playing. But “one to sawa” holds the agreement that they stop when they get fed up. Morose has something of this “one to sawa” feature in it. We dwell on an appetite until sawa na.

Actually, if we just observe an appetite, a while ago it was not here. Now it arises. Later it will pass away.

Take an example. A while ago I was walking down the street and I was not lustful. I have not been having this appetite. It was absent. But suddenly a person “of my type” shows up. Now the appetite of lust arises in me. Here I am encountering this person and my imagination starts to build up. My body begins to give signals here and there. After a while, even in the absence of that person, I refuse to let the lust fade away. I decide to stay lustful from “one to sawa”.

So, in the bus I continue recollecting the memory of that person I just met, and I might even add more images—maybe of other persons. Although the brief encounter is finished—it has passed away—I decide on letting it stay. I delay its passing away from my mind. This is morose.

In morose an appetite “touches” the mind, so to speak, and we refuse to let it pass. We delay its passing. This may look safe but it can be dangerous—if not harmful—if we dwell on evil thoughts. It is not always true that we are so reasonable and lucid and clean all the time. There are moments when we see arising in us very crazy thoughts—like thoughts about harming others and rejecting their dignity. How often do we decide on clinging on to those thoughts?

Let us face it, we have seen the ruin that morose delectation can do when a person not only harbors evil thoughts but expresses externally those thoughts in action. The actions can be withheld but morose delectation, because of its “one to sawa” characteristic, sustains them. A person keeps on exercising harm and violation on someone else because of that indwelling morose delectation. If that person is in such a powerful social-political position, imagine how the morose delectation of that person can direct unjustifiable actions and, at worse, even create institutions justifying the actions.

Because of the powerful person’s morose delectation and its externalization, the lucidity of seeking objectivity in actions and decisions is bracketed. Priority is given to the bloated contents of the morose delectation. We have no legal power against a hideous morose delectation because it stays internal to the person holding it. But, the way to address a powerful person of hideous morose delectation is to “nip the morose delectation in the bud”. More than the legal and political, there is the moral.