Those earnest young men (?) in their pressed polyester suits

Yeah, that's my new title. You got it...

BEFORE I launch into my encyclopedic (no, not Wiki, I'm referring to the ORIGINAL encyclopedia, like, Diderot, right ??) take on "idolatry", which will occupy a fair amount of my time, I felt like... LIGHTENING UP (but the subject is NOT conducive to lightening up, as we shall see...) a little bit.

This morning I took a little stroll into another blog (no names, it's not nice...) and stopped by a table where somebody was congratulating himself ? the blog "members" ? along the lines of.. "OUR comments are" (better/bigger/sexier/more intelligent/cuter, you get the idea) "than THEIR comments are".

Ho hum.

If there is one thing that I have definitely noticed on the blogs, it is this almost SOPHOMORIC dedication to reducing all language to the less than one page essay with intro/development (don't forget to mark those paragraphs, please) NOTHING but clear cut, ten syllable words that NObody can understand, and, of course.. ON TOPIC all the time. (Yes, I know, I'm exaggerating, it's what I do best.)

...

YOU may not realize this, dear reader, but this particularly TOTALITARIAN slant on language, and speaking ("communication" is a word that I have banned from my vocabulary) stems directly from the idolatry ( you'll have to wait for the next installment, dear reader, for more info on that one...) of the scientific method, and the SINGLE MINDED insistance that, since more of a good thing is always better (...), we should ALL talk like the dictionary ALL the time in order to be understood, and eliminate ALL ambiguity in our relations with others. World without end, amen.

i do not share that world project, nor do I WANT to eliminate all ambiguity in my relations with others.

WHAT KIND OF A WORLD WOULD WE LIVE IN IF ALL AMBIGUITY WERE ELIMINATED ?

Maybe... the world that we're trying to live in these days ? A black and white one, with so little room for shades of grey that many of us have forgotten what grey used to look like.

And... HOW MUCH FUN would we be having ?? Personally, I don't have lots of fun with 10 syllable words put together in the format of a scientific abstract.

In true, pain in the ass fashion, I say... WHY CAN'T WE HAVE OUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO ?

Why can't we have fun while talking intelligently on the blogs ?

Why can't we occasionally.. take off those pressed polyester suits, LET OUR HAIR GROW (crew cuts are NOT sexy...) and ENJOY our intellectual activity ?

This also means breaking out of the single minded insistance on a particular type of logic, the immediately apparent logic of the scientific abstract. WE have OTHER kinds of logic, too : the ones available in FREE (catch that word...) association. (Dixit Sigmund. HE discovered this, and he was absolutely right on this one. I believe.)

What's wrong with THEM ?

In countries where mucho tiempo is spent doing a good deal of self congratulation about the end of all sexual hang ups and inhibition, we SEEM to be particularly... INHIBITED STILL about the possibility of having fun.

COULD WE BE LESS "LIBERATED" than we THINK we are, maybe ?

Having fun is the ultimate no no for most of us. IT is STILL tinged with an undercurrent of unease.

And.. FREE association ? I don't even think that we know what this means.. Many of us. (Volumes could be written to expand on THIS observation, but space will not permit. Readers shall have to.. associate on their own.)

i feel qualified to say that it's the equivalent of PLAYING.

Have fun.