if you can be anything, be the best
if you can't be the best, be tragic
if you can't be tragic, be the change
if you can't be the change, be righteous
if you can't be righteous, be kind
if you can't be kind, be the fool
if you can't be the fool, be quiet
if you can't be quiet, be sincere
if you can't be sincere, be interesting
if you can't be interesting, be aware
if you can't be aware, hope someone comes from you
Human people sometimes say "I'm of two minds about such and such."
To which I say, why not more?
Why not be of three, fourteen, eighty-one minds about the matter. The more minds the better.
the more mind cooks in the mind kitchen the deeper the borscht
The type of indecision I can't stand is when someone is trying to choose between two options that will both result in good outcomes and yet the person can't decide because accepting one good outcome means giving up the other.
Greed. Absolute biblical greed.
That you would have one fist clenched around fine spaghetti and the other chocolate eclairs and bemoan your fate for to shove one down your gullet is to deprive your maw of the other.
I'm of two minds about it.
Well then let the minds fight and to the victor go the spoils. Surely the minds are not equal.
I can't decide.
Then you lack will. That's all it is. It's nothing to draw attention to. It's not a topic of conversation. Oh my hands are like plastic grocery bags and everything I try to pick up and hold falls to the ground.
Do you have hands? Then use them. If you don't have hands then grow some hands.
In short, be decisive or be colossally indecisive. A towering monument of air.
This is a thing we say in my parent's house and my sister and I say it to each other as well. The proper response to 'what're you doin? watchin football' is, "yep. watchin' football.' regardless of whether or not you're watching football. In fact, the answer is more correct if you aren't watching football.
The way I remember this call and response coming about was one day I was sitting on the couch where my dad watches TV and he came into the room and saw what was on the TV which was clearly not football and asked, "what're you doing? watchin' football?" and I went along with it and said I was watching football.
I think there's meaning in the ritual. Maybe there doesn't need to be. Maybe the silliness of it is enough. But one possible meaning is that "watchin' football" refers more to the general state one is in when watching football. That is to say, just sitting there staying at the screen. It's bit like the exchange of "how's it going" and "good". You aren't actually asking how someone is doing. And you aren't actually telling them how you're doing. It's an acknowledgment of someone else's presence and your recognition of them. It's letting both people know that you are both safe people who are abiding by the rules. That's a little bit at play in "what're you doin? watchin' football?"
Another element. And at the risk of reading too much into it. Is that my dad and I have pretty different tastes. I know a little bit about football and I've followed it off-and-on but I've never really been into it. Or into cars. Or other sports like UFC. It would be too far to say that my dad and I don't have any shared interests. There's definitely things we both like. But maybe, and maybe just for the sake of writing something interesting, maybe "what're you doing? watching football? yep. watching football" is a kind of way of bridging the gap. It's saying "what're you doing son of mine? the things I imagined my son might be doing?" even though he knows I'm not doing those things at all. And me saying, "yes Father. I am meeting your expectations." And the joke is we both know it's not true and we don't even laugh at it but we absolve ourselves of these expectations.
I don't know. It's mostly a goof.
I try to understand the things it shows.
ah dang I'm just doing Walt Whitman again. I thought I had an original thought started but it's just Song of Myself.
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d’œuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
was take an x-acto knife and scrape out all the grime around my keyboard keys.
it was really satisfying
kind of my new favorite hobby actually
gently scraping away gunk and grime
would recommend
