Lexicon of Stupidity

You are going to die. You are dieing right now. Every cell division in your body brings you one step closer to the end of your genetically possible lifetime. Was this shocking to you? If it was, you are not alone.

For some reason the TV, my newspaper, government agencies and their neophytes have been trying to convince me that I want to live forever and that I should spend my whole life aimed at that goal. I thought that this was an odd idea seeing as I have come to the profound realization that everything dies. I don’t like it, but pretending won’t really change it and spending my whole life vying for a completely impossible goal doesn’t sound like a good idea either.

That leaves me in an awkward place when I am approached by the flavor of the month life extending strategy. It always seems to follow this pattern. Give up previously benign and enjoyable activity forever and you may possibly get a mystery box full of time added to the end of your life if the current research is correct and not the research from twenty years ago which indicates the opposite, but really what did they know they were old and old things are always bad. It sounds like a sales pitch. “Taxes titles options extra, some restrictions may apply.”

It’s not that I am a hedonist either. If you eat the whole pig you are going to puke. And I don’t want my brief stay on this rock to be plagued by physical misery. I just don’t want to have to get out the Healthfood Desk Reference every time I eat. I also don’t want to feel like I’m some sort of freak because I want a Coke with my pizza.

The really crappy part is I know that I’m jaded and I am pretty sure that somewhere, deep beneath the mountain of crap, there are some actual good ideas. Nuggets in the pile. I just don’t have the tools nor the inclination to go diving in.

Ok, so my life has been full of confusing situations lately. Most of them seem to involve me speaking in logical terms to an emotionally driven person. As I understand, this problem is only supposed to get worse as I am on the cusp of the emotional generation and as the rest of the “feel good, nobody looses*” generation gets older I can only expect more of this. You know them. This is the generation that makes decisions based on how special it makes them feel, or how closely aligned it is with their, admittedly, variable definition of what is right. Who makes this crap up? I have the end to every argument for subjective/relative truth. There are absolute truths. Don’t believe me? Contradict me. Just try. Anything you say would be a truth you believed to apply to everyone and is therefore absolute. Even the statement “There are no absolute truths.” is in fact a statement of an absolute truth. However, because you are arguing with emotion you would want to hold on to your relative truth anyway, because it makes you feel better that you can do whatever you want and logic doesn’t even faze you, which is really the heart of my issues.

When they go down the emotional argument road I am totally derailed, because in my humble upbringing I was taught that appeal to emotion is a fallacy and has no place in an argument (and that it is irritating and should be put down with force). …which is why I’m getting a gun.

I decided to watch people who were good at manipulating appeals to emotion and fallacies in general. Politicians are to be my archetype. They weave fallacies like a skilled craftsman. As we all know fear is their favorite fabric and ignorance is the thread. I am in no way conceded enough to believe that I have that much skill with politics. Luckily, a chap named Sam Colt has given me another alternative. I figure a brief allusion to my firearm of choice should be enough to throw my emotional combatant off balance. Something like “I understand you how you feel. I feel the same way when I miss an ammunition sale.” ought to do the trick.

Now, I understand that I am bluffing. Should the conversation go much farther or if they have predicted my stratagem and purchased a weapon of their own, I will be unarmed, so to speak, for the bathetic onslaught. All I am looking for is a fighting chance in an arena I am unfamiliar with.

But really, even if this only saves me from finishing one in five emotional arguments, I think it will be worth it. Also, please don’t misunderstand me, I would never openly threaten to hurt them. I just want to allude to the fact that there is more underneath the surface than meets the eye. If you happen to live in a country where firearms are strictly limited to criminals and big brother, consider replacing “an ammunitions sale” with “a sword sharpening seminar” or something to that effect.

If this strategy does work for you remember that it is to be used sparingly, only when you are sure that all logical options have been exhausted or if it makes you feel special.

*The phrase “nobody looses” should be read: Nobody wins either, socialism rocks, don’t ever try harder because you will just get the exact same thing as the guy who is milking the system, we couldn’t think of a good way to motivate you because we are so afraid of lawsuit happy parents that we are only marginally distracted by trying to get through our curriculum so we can grab a smoke break under the guise of checking on the mimeograph machine while the “classroom monitor” keeps the peace with the threat of “I’m telling” hanging heavy in the air.