On My Sholders
I got home in a rage because I had a professor give me the "I'm disappointed with you because you went over the page limit" look. This is my response:
I hate double space. Logically and concisely I understand that the purpose, function, and proper usage of the lazy art of double spacing is conducive to the teacher in the correction and commenting of papers and projects.
Yet I do not open a book and see double space. Nor do we write-if anyone still writes by hand anymore-in that lazy art of arts unless you have lined paper. Everything else but academic works is all in single and flows brilliantly from one paragraph to the next. Sentences run like a small creek through little pools of water gently and purposely reaching the climax of their journey and destination.
But then again no one reads more than a few short sentences. Everything must end precisely and in an organized manner, none of this scatter-brained nonsense. There is a limit to which our minds can handle the amount of information being thrown at us and once that limit is reached we shut down. Agatha Christie used that as a way to fool us every time and distract us from the solution. We cannot handle more than nine characters at a time, so what does she do? She gives us ten, twelve, maybe even fifteen to manage. Our brains shut down and fall into her hypnotic web until we are just a fly awaiting for our brains to be sucked dry of all its marrow and replaced with whatever putty she wants to throw at us.
However Christie is not the problem, nor was she ever the problem. It is this gutter mouthed drivel, unfit to sleep on the sidewalks, walking around pretending that it is truth. That every sentence must be as follows: Subject (maybe an Adverb, but only one) Verb Adjective Direct Object (and if you’re getting fancy) with an Indirect Object. Anything which deviates is clutter and excess and must be chopped down and stripped to the bare bone, because only then can it have worth, because our minds can only handle so much. Please stop writing, it is a sickness, we can’t handle so much, it’s a terror it’s a nightmare, it’s too long, it’s inefficient, it’s a run on, it’s a bore, we can’t process it, we can’t understand it, we can’t think so our minds are shutting down, it is a deviation, it’s obscene, it’s unseemly, and it’s abnormal. Anything more than a simple sentence we cannot comprehend. Our children will be unable to comprehend more than a phrase, their children will loathe more than a word, and their children will shriek at seeing a simple letter “a”.
Thirty seconds is the summation of why this is so. If you can’t compact what you want to say in that amount of time, no one will buy it. Five minutes is enough time for an exposition, bonus points are awarded if you can fuse an Exposition and Inciting moment together. If it can’t fit into that length of time and use the word like a lot like right now, then. We have long stopped living and only think like the tube because we are the tube. We want to be seen on the tube, we love the tube, and we will only get fifteen minutes so we best use them wisely.
They say that the Age of Aquarius is upon us and that a great wave in science, understanding, compassion, and sympathy will arrive with us, but that the old order will die a slow and painful death. If the Age of Aquarius is fast approaching then why does everyone hate details? Aquarius loves the details and will go off on more tangents then anybody else. I for one know that most of all for I am what I am and I cannot be what I am not. Yet why do the Fish resist me? Why do they swim along in their schools, sticking together, keeping the chain that binds intact? I am eager for the day when all the water will evaporate and the fish will all die together.
But then the sea will be open for all to examine and ponder upon, to dissect and demystify. And mystery is a most precious thing to have because without it, life is one long boring paper typed in single space that hounds the same topic over and over again without any point at all. A lot of frill for nothing, fighting and keeping at bay imagined evils while the real villains are out there pounding on the door. You want us to think about what is within our souls, about ourselves? Why must we? We will have to meet ourselves and that is something which we cannot face-because deep down we are all cruel horrid things striving to be better, but never able to reach complete fulfillment of an ideal. So why go on about that? We’ve got other problems to solve, a world to fix, a government in need of an overall, clutter to clean, and garbage to dispose of. We don’t need more junk because it is wasteful and gets in the way.
Master Pilgrim why do you chip away like you do? The Gothic has ended, nobody cares for your frills, for good to be fighting against the evil, because the Evil has ended there is no evil in the world, because that isn’t logical, and this is the best of all possible worlds. Your loft will crack and fall-it will never hold the organ.
If it cannot hold itself then I will bare it on my shoulders for all eternity.
YAWP!
~Chas
I hate double space. Logically and concisely I understand that the purpose, function, and proper usage of the lazy art of double spacing is conducive to the teacher in the correction and commenting of papers and projects.
Yet I do not open a book and see double space. Nor do we write-if anyone still writes by hand anymore-in that lazy art of arts unless you have lined paper. Everything else but academic works is all in single and flows brilliantly from one paragraph to the next. Sentences run like a small creek through little pools of water gently and purposely reaching the climax of their journey and destination.
But then again no one reads more than a few short sentences. Everything must end precisely and in an organized manner, none of this scatter-brained nonsense. There is a limit to which our minds can handle the amount of information being thrown at us and once that limit is reached we shut down. Agatha Christie used that as a way to fool us every time and distract us from the solution. We cannot handle more than nine characters at a time, so what does she do? She gives us ten, twelve, maybe even fifteen to manage. Our brains shut down and fall into her hypnotic web until we are just a fly awaiting for our brains to be sucked dry of all its marrow and replaced with whatever putty she wants to throw at us.
However Christie is not the problem, nor was she ever the problem. It is this gutter mouthed drivel, unfit to sleep on the sidewalks, walking around pretending that it is truth. That every sentence must be as follows: Subject (maybe an Adverb, but only one) Verb Adjective Direct Object (and if you’re getting fancy) with an Indirect Object. Anything which deviates is clutter and excess and must be chopped down and stripped to the bare bone, because only then can it have worth, because our minds can only handle so much. Please stop writing, it is a sickness, we can’t handle so much, it’s a terror it’s a nightmare, it’s too long, it’s inefficient, it’s a run on, it’s a bore, we can’t process it, we can’t understand it, we can’t think so our minds are shutting down, it is a deviation, it’s obscene, it’s unseemly, and it’s abnormal. Anything more than a simple sentence we cannot comprehend. Our children will be unable to comprehend more than a phrase, their children will loathe more than a word, and their children will shriek at seeing a simple letter “a”.
Thirty seconds is the summation of why this is so. If you can’t compact what you want to say in that amount of time, no one will buy it. Five minutes is enough time for an exposition, bonus points are awarded if you can fuse an Exposition and Inciting moment together. If it can’t fit into that length of time and use the word like a lot like right now, then. We have long stopped living and only think like the tube because we are the tube. We want to be seen on the tube, we love the tube, and we will only get fifteen minutes so we best use them wisely.
They say that the Age of Aquarius is upon us and that a great wave in science, understanding, compassion, and sympathy will arrive with us, but that the old order will die a slow and painful death. If the Age of Aquarius is fast approaching then why does everyone hate details? Aquarius loves the details and will go off on more tangents then anybody else. I for one know that most of all for I am what I am and I cannot be what I am not. Yet why do the Fish resist me? Why do they swim along in their schools, sticking together, keeping the chain that binds intact? I am eager for the day when all the water will evaporate and the fish will all die together.
But then the sea will be open for all to examine and ponder upon, to dissect and demystify. And mystery is a most precious thing to have because without it, life is one long boring paper typed in single space that hounds the same topic over and over again without any point at all. A lot of frill for nothing, fighting and keeping at bay imagined evils while the real villains are out there pounding on the door. You want us to think about what is within our souls, about ourselves? Why must we? We will have to meet ourselves and that is something which we cannot face-because deep down we are all cruel horrid things striving to be better, but never able to reach complete fulfillment of an ideal. So why go on about that? We’ve got other problems to solve, a world to fix, a government in need of an overall, clutter to clean, and garbage to dispose of. We don’t need more junk because it is wasteful and gets in the way.
Master Pilgrim why do you chip away like you do? The Gothic has ended, nobody cares for your frills, for good to be fighting against the evil, because the Evil has ended there is no evil in the world, because that isn’t logical, and this is the best of all possible worlds. Your loft will crack and fall-it will never hold the organ.
If it cannot hold itself then I will bare it on my shoulders for all eternity.
YAWP!
~Chas