The Silly Factor

I sat in traffic last week long enough to watch part of some neighborhood baseball game.  The pitcher wound up and put one right across home plate.   The batter popped it up; it hung there momentarily and then plopped back into the waiting mitt of the pitcher.  I wanted to watch some more but the rusted and smoking Pontiac in front of me began to move so the last glimpse I had of the game was of the proud pitcher turning to the outfield and taking several bows.  I hadn’t seen that much ham since Easter.

 

         For some odd reason I know I’ll retain the image of that pitcher taking bows.  The silliness of it seemed to add a spark of humanity to an otherwise unmemorable event.

 

         I think that it’s the silliness that I see every day, at work, on the freeway, and just about everywhere I look, that fills my empty brain cells.  Cells, that in others, are already full with tiny bits of math, science, current events and proper comma usage.   Everyday Life is like thick syrup, ever so slowly pouring over my brain, filling millions of cells with silly observations.

 

         It doesn’t take much effort to see the silliness.  It’s almost everywhere.  At the new mall, just down the road, they put up a huge building and they call it, “Outdoor World.”   I know that sounds fine to most of you but...  IT'S A BUILDING! and they call it outdoors?

 

This is ZC suggesting that if you are out of school and don’t have to take any more tests, go and flush the Political Science and Calculus out of your brain and make room for a little silliness.  Just go out and look for something, then write and tell me what you saw. 

 

 

(Don't stop me now, I'm on a roll)

            Without an office manager or an editor I still manage to get this gibberish out each week.  There is of course the understanding that I have not promised (you) the customer that it would be here at any specific time, so I haven’t created any arbitrary deadline; there are no pressures of schedule and certainly no concerns about potential disappointment.  My competition is non-existent as this publication is non-profit, undisciplined and generally superfluous.  All the better for me because this allows freedoms not found in America’s workforce. 

 

            I can sit and write this in bits, stems and pieces over time or I can whip it out in one fidgetless sitting, spending the rest of the week picking cooties out of vegetable soup.  There are no employees to monitor, praise or chastise and obviously no dress code.  I can, should I decide to do so, write an entire paragraph leaving one shoe untied, although I’m sure it would mentally fester but none the less I have that option.   Your expectations remain low as history has taught you to expect at least 50% peanuts.  I’m not suggesting that I do not aim high but only that over the course of time the pointer on the quality scale has leaned closer to zero than it has to one hundred.

 

            I like to think that humans, in the absence of monitors, would still be productive, and generate forward motion with respect to the greater good; understanding that there will still be some going about with one shoe untied, but pure of heart still the same.  It’s important to believe in the positive aspects of each other even when language barriers, political convictions or attitudes towards vegetable soup may be worlds apart.  I like to think there is a collective underlying belief that in the face of global adversity, mankind would unite.  Not simply for self preservation but just because.  Yes, you heard me right; just because.

 

            I’m sure you heard it as a child, “Because I said so, that’s why.”  No reason, no logic, just because.  The existence of all human life could ultimately hang in the balance and we will boldly defend ourselves with, “Because, that’s why.”

 

            I like to refer to that as the silly factor.  We all have it.  It is in us when we are born and it’s still there when we finally say good-night.  It may not always surface but trust me, it’s in there.  It just may be the silly factor that makes us human.  It exists without regard to language or geographic location, religious affiliations or window treatments.  It can lay dormant for years and then something will trigger it; a word or a situation, something will cause you to flash back to that point in your life when some authority figure was, in excessive decibels, telling you that you had to do something – just because.  

 

            It is in the absence of logic that I write these blatherings, for they are void of direction and missing the mark completely when it comes to worthwhile hobbies.  Repelled at the thought of hunting, immune to the lure of fishing and lacking the mental wherewithal to don a helmet and slam repeatedly into someone else in pursuit of a football, I am drawn towards the manipulation of thought.  It remains a passion without bounds.  I am free to contemplate the sounds of a harmonica as it might be played in outer space or to reflect upon the knee joint of an ant.

 

            There isn’t a uniform to wear, no recipes to remember and although grammatical rules and guidelines exists, I am free to ignore them.

 

 

            Because I said so, that’s why.