Setting: Home.
Daddy: Even if you forget most of a book, you still take things from it that you learn.
Me: Yes, but that's not true for all books. I've read lots of stupid books from which I learned nothing, except that they were stupid.
Mom: [Laughs for 5 minutes.] You should put that on your blog.
And so I have. I said a funny thing, apparently, and now I share it with you. I know that since you have read this post, your life will never be the same. Indeed, your breathing pattern may alter and your life will improve in multiple dimensions.
9 comments:
it has improved. i laughed.
Yes, but did you know that the book was going to be stupid before you started reading it?
I was suspicious.
I was going to say something inane and hugely patronizing but I actually thought of something to say about this. I think that White Anglo Saxon Protestant types, (which we fall into generically) have a hard time justifying the use of time for anything that isn't constructive, part of a previously considered goal or a subconcious one. I don't think that Italians or Puerto Ricans or your average poor South American person has any problem with wasting time...as long as it is fun, as long as it isn't contributing to starvation.
I think that knowing that there are no deadlines in life is liberating. Being OK with a stupid but even marginally entertaining book is healthy. Time just isn't for saving the world alone. Besides, how can anybody save the world if they always have their nose to the grindstone which we both know is likely to have nothing important about it.
I remember Aunt Mary Ann's husband Ralph once told me that once a year he allowed himself to read something that wouldn't improve his mind or spirit. At the time I thought: "what discipline" and "how odd" but now I think that he was nuts.
Love, Dad
PS do you get all of these missing words I see. I know that there is nothing important about them, I'm just curious. Love, DAd
PPS You should try reading "On Being and Time" by Martin Heidiger (sp?) and "Critique of Pure Reason". Kant's book is supposed to be one of the most important books in the English Language. And any philosopher who is any kind of serious philosopher has read Heidiger. (Which is probably why I have never read it..although I did take a stab a the Critique. The book was so thick that the blade broke off at the hilt.
Anyway, I could never decide if they were about nothing or something...but even if they could be understood and were about something, it probably was nothing important. Love, Dad
PPPS Why do you have a pet penquin?
The penguin came with the outfit, of course.
I certainly hope they were about nothing. If they were about something then you'd be obligated to remember it. And so you can successfully pretend to have read them when in truth you've read nothing at all.
The "blade broke off at the hilt" remark reminds me of when I shoved my bow into the couch and broke it. hehehe..
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