Virtual Flaneurism

I've been chugging through my house's most recent selection for our book club, Everything is Illuminated. I was struck by a certain passage tonight. It contains no spoilers and goes as follows:

"Do you like thinking about Mom?
No.
Does it hurt after?
Yes.
Then why do you continue to do it? she asked. And why, she wondered, remembering the description of her rape, do we pursue it?"

This lingered with me: why do we somewhat fanatically revisit the memories of lost loves that give us pain? I don't find my wandering mind returning to a bad smell or a bitter taste. I don't continually relive stubbed toes and broken bones. And while I realize the difference between the simple, nonpartisan agony of a punched gut and the what-was-is-no-more despair of reflecting on something once good, I nonetheless find it peculiarly anti-evolutionary that we compulsively return to agonizing thoughts as if they contained some veiled lesson waiting to be gleaned. God knows I can't think of one thing I've learned from ten years of on-and-off lament over the men that got away other than to avoid them altogether. And genetics says a compulsive habit resulting in a "I can do fine fucking myself, thank you" attitude is about as likely to get passed on as a penchant for eating live bees.

Anyway, here's one of my favorite depressing Beatles songs. Also, don't mind me -- I've been figuratively man-menstruating for a few days now and there's only so much Aimee Mann can do before the moodiness tumbles over onto the blog. Count yourself lucky that I was waxing philosophical and not posting a polemic about love or badgers or something.