So how do I end this year in writing?

Do I say something about love? I can't. Not because I don't want to; but because this year, for the first time in 29 years, I confirmed without a doubt that I know nothing about it, and possibly never will. As deeply disturbing as it is to be close to conceding that I may never understand something which seems so natural to the majority of my fellow human beings, I have forced myself to become accustomed to the feeling. As Alfonso Cuarón wisely said: "There either is or is not a way things are". This I have come to accept.

Instead, I've decided to quote what has been the most inspiring piece of writing I've been lucky enough to discover in a long time. I've often referred to perspective as an incredibly valuable frame of mind, and this piece illustrates the concept beautifully. It's a few paragraphs taken from Carl Sagan's The Pale Blue Dot, which he wrote after looking at an image taken by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As Voyager moved increasingly further away from earth on its journey of inter-planetary discovery, engineers turned it around for one last look at us. The spacecraft was about 6.4 billion kilometres away from our home world as it captured an image of earth as simply a tiny point of light only 0.12 pixels in size. This is what Sagan had to say:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Some define it in the way something around their neck sparkles in the morning light. Some see it as the degree of isolation they can achieve from the ho-hum of traffic. Others find it in the fit around their waist. Many believe it to be in the effectiveness of their differentiation from those less capable. Some even find it in the taste of a glass too costly to waste a drop of.

Me? I like stuff I can feel.

In the world of sleep, there's linen. There's also 100% cotton linen. Then, there's 100% cotton percale, which is cotton with a thread count of at least 200. On the end of the scale however, there's 400 thread count Egyptian cotton.

Oh yes.

Forget about spending money on jewellery, executive transport, designer shoes or single malt whiskey. Lay yourself down in the plush environment of high thread count Egyptian cotton, and all that other stuff will seem silly as you drift away into dreamland. It's hard to describe how the feelings of crispness and softness can go together, but they just do. It's awesome. Seriously, you haven't slept until you've slept in this stuff.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's past my bedtime.

You're too emotional!

You're cold-hearted!

How can you say that? I love you!

Hah. No, I'm not busy practicing writing scripts for Days of our Lives. Instead, I'm throwing a ball between two sides of the court. What got this throwing going is a bit of wondering about why and how I react emotionally to things. Specifically, reacting emotionally at different intensities, and the effect this intensity can have on the outcome of whatever got emotions going in the first place.

Everyone reacts with varying degrees of emotion to events, people and situations. The other day, I reacted very logically and calmly to a situation I afterwards thought would possibly be volatile for someone in the position I was, and it fascinated me. Which, of course, led to a bit of investigation into my reactionary system...

So, without further ado, I bring you the Ideal Emotive Response Model™

* OK, so calling it "Ideal" might be a bit arrogant, I admit. It's how I see the way I react. More importantly, it's how I would ideally like to react.

The premise is simple: being able to selectively pause emotion while its effect on the outcome of the situation is considered, is an extremely powerful ability.

Now, I'm not going to claim that this ability is something which can be switched on/off or trained, or even that anyone can acquire it. I'm simply stating its theoretical value; within the context of my attempts to figure it out, with some degree of success. If you know anything about psychology you'll be aware that emotion is in essence a physiological reaction to how the environment is perceived, with the idea that the environment might be better coped with if the mind and body is driven to react to it in a certain way. Much like flowers open to absorb sunlight, so the human mind becomes angry or sad or intensely focused or oblivious to reach its goals (whatever they may be, survival being one example).

OK, so emotion is a tool the body employs to reach its goals, right? But what if your body's goals (although instinctive) are not necessarily in line with a set of goals you've carefully and rationally calculated? Your calculations could be wrong, of course - and some would argue that they probably are, because your instinct know best… although it's not something I can ignore, this is beyond the scope of this discussion Rather, I'd like to go on the assumption that the rational goal is more important than the instinctive one. At the very least, it's wanted more.

When you place rational goals above instinctive ones, you implicitly have to put yourself into a mode that relies on reasoning as your primary "processor". You decide, if you will, to not react to anything at a whim, but to analyse and process everything logically. Now here's the thing: When you process things logically (and place focus on doing so), emotion holds the potential to become a tool with which to increase the effectiveness of your reaching of the rational goal, as opposed to simply an involuntary reaction designed to reach the instinctive goal.

Of course, I've assumed up to this point that emotion can be switched on or off based on a choice, which in turned is based on a logical argument. Initially (step two in the diagram), it's pretty easy, because emotional intensity is pretty low. Once the level of intensity rises (by choice), it can be difficult to pause it again to make a rational assessment. The mere presence of emotion interferes with reason, something which concerns me deeply (and is yet again a topic for another day). I think it can be done though, with practice.

What's the secret? Temporary cold-heartedness, the kind that draws blanks stares from the romantically inclined. Not cold-heartedness in an evil kind of way, but cold-heartedness in a way which understands one thing: killing at one point increases life at another.

UPDATE: The thinking's been a bit expanded in the comments...