Thursday, April 14, 2016

Wait, Who Are They Again?


Beginnings and endings are a challenge. Get in, get out. Hook 'em while you got 'em. Sometimes you end up off center. That's okay, as long as you make it interesting enough that folks will follow, even if you go to strange and possibly even dangerous places.

What am I talking about? Good question, glad you asked. Truth is, I have no idea. I've been thinking about randomness and the role it plays in all of our lives. Apparently it's a much larger force than most of us care to believe. This is a survival skill, as if we acknowledged how much of life is left to chance, we might stop trying.

That's the theory, anyway. Seems like a good one, or at least plausible. Next question is what to do with this information.

Before we go there, though, here's the thing about good or even plausible ideas: sometimes they aren't. I'm not saying that's the case here, just that it's yet another bias to be aware of. An authority says something is true and we believe it. Because authority.

If this were an actual essay with an actual point, the premise would have been nailed by now and we'd be getting into supporting arguments right about now. But it's more of a sandbox with shovels and flailing inner children.

Okay, so it's not just beginnings and endings. Middles are hard, too. Each of those has a beginning and an ending. Break everything into smaller components. Go atomic, go nuclear, go whatever. Throw in some dialog.

“Hey, great idea.”

Seems like it, but maybe not. Maybe you're just deferring to my authority, which is based on nothing more than the words I just typed.

“They don't call it 'meta' for nothing.”

No, they don't. Wait, who are they again?

No comments:

Post a Comment