GENIUS FORUMS

What is the deal with shiny objects? Since the first glitter of human gold to the first cut of human diamonds to the first detonation of human fireworks. Thanks to Freud, attraction to tiny shiny things has usually been associated with some sense of immaturity (some kind of remnant from anal staging or something), but what I find odd here is that lifelong, shiny objects diminish for me as inner grows. This does not mean I am not caught by anything that sparkles (someone in the neighborhood has studded a huge outdoor pine with deep blue LED lights, and I can't help but think of the "sacred blue" loved by so many artists [and meant to be used sparingly]). Nevertheless, something about organic aging transforms tiny shiny things into tooth-knocking crystalized sugar. When I have looked long - at christmas lights or stage set sparkles or rows of jewelry, beads, trinkets, even tiny shiny buddhas and related aesthete, all the way to the light that strobes off of the television at night - any of this for long, then comes a stomach ache, like anything ingested overmuch. But we have always been bower birds, flitting in and out of our lairs with collections of shiny things. In another moment, we can find the same thing vulgar, perhaps even to turn away; seek a visual quiet.

Is the shiny object just another manifestation of diurnal love of light? Like the bower birds, we collect to attract mates? Is Freud onto something with his notice of immature adults and the frequency with which they are attracted to shiny things? Is this a ratio you've seen borne out in life? How does female jewelry fit in/immaturity? What is so seductive about shiny things? Is it unconscious structure or long, long cultural praxis? - for we bedeck our children and their rooms with all possible color and shine, and we glitter on into adulthood. Tiny shiny things have always been the province of wealth; a marxist marker.

But have you ever found yourself at quite the opposite place? - a little sickened by all the shiny objects; in fact, seeing them stand as something "less," something like Freud speculated . . . .

God bless the child.

i think few are truly attracted by shiny things, others are just sheep, visible in all walks of life. but even sheep are sheared and their true colours made apparent to the world. a sheep tries to fit in, but can for only so long.

I think shiny things are associated with status, beauty, love, and they tantalize the fragile ego who wants to possess something pure and beautiful.

That is why women stare at their partners ring for hours. she thinks. "he loves me, this is forever, he thinks I'm this beautiful, and all the rest of it"

It is the spirit's desperate attempt to feel complete through things.

Pye wrote:What is the deal with shiny objects? Since the first glitter of human gold to the first cut of human diamonds to the first detonation of human fireworks.

Probably to replicate the starry skies at night. Go out into wilderness and behold the constellations in all their naked splendor. One of the fond memories of growing up in North Dakota, was soaking up all the Native American tales of creation from their point of view. The powwows, the peyote trips under the stars. Could go on but the memories are there for the taking. Shiny.

Thanks Pye for this.

dejavu: Pye! You big Grinch! Kisses for you! Lots of them, like stars.

:) no grinch! I ask after their seductiveness; I wonder about the diurnal attraction (made brighter with stars at night, as Tomas reminds me); there has been sun, light worship in metaphor and ritual for the longest time; for truth, for reason, for enlightenment. It is also truthful that trinkety shiny things don't shine for me as they once did. Would rather I strip it all away to rock, water, fire, earth, the sun, the moon, and yes, the stars; the squash of fossils and crystals and ribbony jades; the place where water touches land . . . .


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Trinkets are a way for the common flawed person to distract attention from the inner-self.

"C'mon you miners for truth and delusion and shine!"

Shine on, you crazy diamonds...

Carmel wrote:"C'mon you miners for truth and delusion and shine!"

Shine on, you crazy diamonds...

Reminds me of "Jambi" from Tool. Good song.

my bad, I should've quoted that properly.

It's from Pink Floyd "Shine on you Crazy Diamond"

Gurrb wrote:

Carmel wrote:"C'mon you miners for truth and delusion and shine!"

Shine on, you crazy diamonds...

Reminds me of "Jambi" from Tool. Good song.

I'm still very much a fan of the old Tool songs like Eulogy.

"Ranting and pointing his finger, at everything but his heart, we'll miss him, we'll miss him."

There is another way to examine shiny, but it takes you back to Quantum Physics. But first lets take a quick look at the bee with eyes that make flowers glow. So here you have a situation where a glowing object draws a creature of nature towards it. Second example is the moth, who is drawn towards bright lights. So what do we have in common with the bee, and the moth? There is a fractal to nature, and we are basically a bunch of electrons using a human form as their Avatar. Electrons are attracted to photons, and I believe that electrons catch photons to recharge themselves. So here we have a function that is credited to electrons, but still being used in human form. We spend a lot of time watching TV (Catching Photons), and many other forms of entertainment include catching photons. So basically, we are using a minute source of photosynthesis. But what about Diamonds, and Gold? Well the thing that Diamonds, Gold, and photons have in common is their creation by breaking a rule of nature. The rule that they break is the rule of creation. According to my new theory, any time that zero is created in nature a new substance is created, and so zero can never truly exist. Zero always creates a ghostly substance, with some abnormality. Photons are most likely created by a substance being crushed to such a small size that it explodes at zero scale. Now this split is most likely the left side of an electron in reality. A diamond crushed under pressure so that certain aspects of it become impossible, and transparent, and rainbow-like. It is a mixture of matter, and impossible matter. Gold with its reflective surfaces are another freak of the zero rule. There must be something amazing to us about this sort of zero creation. Maybe because we live there as electrons, and that is our true purpose in life. To live as electrons.

The sensing organs, such as the eyes, are attracted to what they sense.

Thought is relevant to the extent that memory 'frames' the sensation and the difference between frames rendered into memory equals movement. In that, it may be said that the eye sees no thing, meaning it doesnt interpret. It captures the input. Memory renders the image. Thought links the frames. Hence, it is attracted to itself and it 'sees itself', through interpretation.

Freud doesn't help, he's dead, as is all memory and its linking up (thought). The dead cannot touch the living.

This subject has always intrigued me, (As I know for a fact that it has intrigued most everyone else here) why are people attracted to shiny things?

If I may offer a personal opinion, I believe barracudas (Predatory fish) are attracted to shiny objects, thus exemplifying the idea that the attraction to shiny objects was born in the era of the first vertebrates, therefore this attraction is base and primordial, possibly stimulated by simian and sapient curiosity. Perhaps it was originally developed with the introduction of the eye, predatory fish (Possibly earlier or relative organisms as well) would be attracted to anything that stood out in the gloom, and would therefore attack it.

In a better explanation, early predators attack what can be easily discerned from the gloomy water.

Or in turn, prey would watch out for any distinctive colors or easily noticeable contrasts in order to flee from it.

Maybe it has to do with shiny objects impressing sharply upon our retinas and appearing as more salient features of the environment and thus novel and evoking a dopaminergic reward as many novel things do. RWI paraphrased I guess.