100 words

Normally, I get a rant up here by about midmorning, and yet here it is after lunchtime and I'm still flailing around, metaphorically speaking, for an appropriate topic upon which to unleash my keen powers of observation, my shrewd sense of judgment, my mastery of the language (English), and my endearing and quirky sense of humor. What I could do, I suppose, is accept that I got nothing this week, and write about that for exactly 100 words. But I have way too much pride for that sort of crappy hackneyed tactic, and you, my dear reader, deserve far better.

A game of inches

I'm amused by big stuff like the world's biggest pencil or watering can. I like absurdly little things, too, like tiny bibles or those dogs you can put in a teacup. So I don't know how I missed this up to now: Wichita Falls, Texas, is home to the world's littlest skyscraper. It's a four story brick building, about 10 feet across and 18 feet deep. Unimpressive, but the good part is the guy who built it in 1919 bilked investors out of $200,000, having them sign off on blueprints specifying the skyscraper would be 480” tall. Which it is.

Nothing possible is worth doing.

I've been over this before: I keep thinking about what a terrible mistake it's been to outsource all the very best aspects of life. Other people act out our stories, tell our jokes, perform our music, play our games, teach our children, nurse our dying. Don't talk to me about efficiencies of scale and specialization. We're not termites. You can paint frescoes and pick potatoes with the same two hands. And yes- it's impossible to be expert, or even competent, at everything. Don't let that stop you. Just being alive is impossible; everyone fails at it within a few decades.

Thank me later.

Probably, right after I die, people will look back over these rants and see that taken as a whole they point the way to an all-encompassing philosophy that combines rationality and universal bonds of filial affection in such a way that once adoption of these ideas reaches a critical tipping point a virtually eternal epoch of global happiness becomes not only possible but actually inevitable and smiling crowds of blissful humans work together in orchards and pastures and gardens to produce without backbreaking toil everything they need for their simple joyous lives. I'm pretty sure that's what going to happen.