Tuesday, June 12, 2012

logical colons.

I don't do logic. Ever heard the saying "you can have too much of a good thing?" Of course you have, because you wanted to purchase a more-than-acceptable amount of candy in the presence of an adult. In the grown-up world, logic is everywhere, and there's too much of it around all the time, regardless of how good it is.
It's at work: "no, we don't need a pool installed out back"; in church: "you're not a child, don't go up to the front when he says it's time for the children's sermon"; and in writing: "that's not how you use semi-colons and colons."
Well world that tells me how to use punctuation, may your colon explode for some reason unexpectedly one day.

None of this worked, my wife said I still needed to shave off the second half of my mustache and get out of kitchen because it wasn't a restroom. So I stepped out of the sleeping bag, untied my boots, took them off and put on a shirt, then stomped upstairs to the bathroom to sulk.

Logic is ruining our planet.
When I was a kid, if a bully came up to you and said brusquely "What up. I'm a bully and I'm gonna punch you in your face if you don't give me your lunch money" the correct response would be to grab the nearest light saber and fight him off the nearest cliff, because in real life bullies never spoke that way. It was a dream. Not logical.
Nowadays if a bully says that to you I'm told kids are supposed to reach in their pockets and hand him their money then go find the nearest adult and explain calmly to them exactly what happened. This is logical. Do you not see the problem though? LOGIC MAKES AWESOME FIGHTS EXTINCT.
I was in high school when I got in my first fight. What happened? I'll tell you. I lost. I lost completely. It was astonishing the sheer volume of losing that one skinny little white guy was handed, and yet I took every bit of it. Did I cry? Absolutely. Why? Because.
Ask me this though, did I lose the next fight? No. I chose it very carefully, at a time and place of my own choosing. I wasn't going to let another big Hawaiian kid get the best of me again. So I waited until the time was right, then I chose a kid much smaller and weaker than myself.
"Get off the slide."
"But it's my turn!"
"Not any more it isn't."
"Aw man! Okay." And he stepped off the ladder. That was it. I won with almost no bloodshed. Scraped my knee at the bottom of the slide because I came off it sideways, but no biggie. I was tough and didn't tell anyone, I just got water from the water fountain and drank it instead. Ever seen a pro boxing match? UFC fight? Wrestling championship? What's the first thing they do when it's over? Drink some water. Exactly like I did. Stand down.

To you, logical world, I ask this: which ended better – the fight I lost logically, or the second fight I won illogically? The second, of course.
Logic is also demanding. You have to use it all the time, like toilet paper. Who originally proposed that idea for a hipster startup?

"We need something people will keep coming back for over and over again for the rest of their lives."
"Haircuts?"
"Already been invented, Steve."
"Oh, sorry. Um… batteries?"
"No Steve. If it has a name then it's already been invented and we can't use it for an awesome startup."
"Oh, sorry. Um… knackeries?"
"What's knackeries, Steve?"
"Don't know. But it isn't a thing yet, we could use that, right?"
"No Steve. We can't. Let's just use our original idea and make using your hand to wipe a really gross thing and sell people paper instead."
"Sounds good. Like letters and journals and books and stuff?"
"No, like butt-kleenex."

Once someone finds out that you know how to use logic, you're expected to use it all the time, every time, and I find that high of maintenance exhausting. Folks should learn to drive to the store in reverse every once in a while, just to break free of the chains that bind society. Free yourself up from the butt-kleenex and get creative. Stick it to the status quo and disobey logic occasionally, I think you'll find it exhilarating. Like using colons however you please.

What am I listening to right now? A lecture on the environment given at a Korean summit. Do I speak Korean? No. Will I let that limit my mind expanding into unknown territories, just because it's "illogical"? Definitely not:

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