Saturday, October 07, 2006

On the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Absurdity is what happens when there is a conflict between what you think the universe should be like, and what you encounter tells you the universe should be like. Did I learn that in theatre history, or was it somewhere else?

In a perfect world, everything turns out exactly as it should. Well, in a world with six-odd billion egocentric people, what precisely does that mean? What is justice, or even a fair sense of equality when there are six billion slightly different views on the topic?

I'm good at what I do. There are better people out there, although whether that's because they're naturally gifted, worked hard, or both could be a matter of some discussion. Is it fair that some people were born with greater gifts than I have? Is it fair that I'm more adept at recognizing patterns and solving problems than 99 percent of the population (at least, according to standardized tests. And while I'm on the topic, who the hell decides what is "standard," anyway. What does that mean? Why should a bunch of ultimately inane questions asked under a very specific situation determine someone's capabilities? For example, in spite of everything, I don't deal well with pressure. I crack easily, and I make lots of mistakes when under a time constraint. I don't think quickly, I'm not very clever, and I'm not particularly witty. Understanding and memorization, however, comes as easily to me as a sparrow takes flight. However easily that may be. And I'm a very fast learner, at least on a scale where the base unit is a matter of hours or days. Does that make me smart? Do I get a gold star?) Does fairness even fit into the grand equation of things in a meaningful way? Not everyone can be a rocket scientist, after all. Someone's gotta sweep the factory floor.

I'm not a naïve person. I understand that the world isn't a pretty place. But every now and something rises out of this little bog of complacency I've settled into, and everything just looked skewed. And I start to wonder what it would all mean if it didn't really mean anything. Nobody's out there, nobody's watching over you, and the fact that a pigeon just shat on your head has no cosmological significance whatsoever.

I know exactly what's bothering me. Well...sort of. I'm just doing the philosophy dance again, because it distracts me from what I should be addressing, which I have no intention of going into detail here. Eh. It's 5 am. I'm less than coherent. I just wanted to write.

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