We need more people in the world not afraid to say that something is PISS!
I have ALWAYS found ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’ both extraordinarily absurd.
When I was like 6, and i had just started talking, if someone asked me how I was
I might say, “I seem to be functioning within normal parameters’.
(Yes! I loved “Mr. Spock” and computers and androids — who didn’t?)
Now see? There’s no nonsense optimism or pessimism there, those are both EQUALLY DISTORTIONS
of what is real.
Now of course these days, I’m prone to just say, “I am good”.
It’s been a long road to dumb down a proper response for a status update query,
but since hardly anyone alive cares about the state of my equilibrium or disequilibrium
or lack thereof in our larger ecosystem, I might as well respond with a very low information
content response.
Now conversely, if I ask someone that, I stop what I’m doing and stop moving, and wait
for the person to stop walking away from me, as I won’t ask that question unless I actually
want the information update.
If I don’t want a status update, I just smile in a friendly manner to acknowledge the person’s
existence and to signal that that i have no hostility towards them so that i don’t have to deal
with the shallow social fabrication of asking ‘how you doing?’ when often neither party has
any actual interest in a response, and certainly not a detailed response.
Now, yes, I can play all the expected social games pretty well, but that doesn’t mean
that it’s my first language, or that I don’t find a great deal of it absurd.
I just felt like being openly ‘autistic’ or at least ridiculously pedantic for the first time in months.
It’s rather my happy place, and I don’t treat myself to it very often.
Kevin Cann
1/27/2025