Derailed Thoughts

It’s been far too long since I’ve written anything meaningful on my Blog.  This might be due to the fact that the majority of my time on the internet is spent doing important things like watching YouTube videos and finding creative ways to transport coconuts (if you often spend your time in a similar manner, you might enjoy  me, Tyson, Natalie, Chris, Chad, Matt, and Blake’s other blog). In all seriousness, though, sometimes life just flies by without leaving any deep thoughts worth writing about.  I don’t know if the following qualifies as one of those, but I’ve got an urge to write tonight before I go to bed.

I’ve concluded there is some type of little man with a typewriter in the back of each of our minds.  A long time ago, this little man was hired to write jokes for us to tell.  As you can see from the picture, mine is a black man named Corbis.  All day long he just taps away, making fun of life’s foibles and the illogical things that we all do.  Every once in awhile he writes something funny.  And we laugh to ourselves in the middle of the library.  And strangers around us try to decide if they should act like they get the joke or not.

Unrelatedly, what in the world is a foible?

Anywho, in each of our heads is another little man with a bowler hat and monacle that examines each of this other man’s jokes.  Much of the time, Bowler Man tosses Typewriter Guy’s jokes in the trash before our mouth tries to spit them out.  It’s a good thing, too.  Not only would most of our jokes make us sound like an idiot, but Typewriter Guy can be a jerk sometimes.

Have you ever had a day, though, when Bowler Man was gone on break and Typewriter Guy was mad about something or other?  You say a few jokes that you’re confident will be funny only to realize, moments later, that you’re a jerk.  Typewriter Guy just offended five good friends with one fell swoop.  Man I hate those moments.  There’s a very thin line between poking fun and joying in others’ weaknesses.

Our confidence being as precariously built as it is, we all need to be careful not to break it for others; further, it’s no challenge to be a critic.  There’s not much sense priding ourselves in our abilities to notice flaws.  I don’t really have a solution to this dilemma–I strongly believe that to lose the ability to laugh at life is to lose the ability to cope with it.  I think none of us finds joy in making another’s day a little less bright, and so I’m sure none of us ever do it on purpose.

Therefore, I post this blog as a disclaimer.  If I hang out with you by choice, I like you.  I most likely consider you a good person.  Even if I say something about your inability to tie shoes, comment on your living room that looks like it is friends with a roto-tiller, point out your lack of left sock, or suggest that Google is not, in fact, a reliable spell checker, I am still quite happy being around you.  Otherwise I promise that I’d be much more careful in keeping those things to myself.

Thanks to my good friends who stick around even when Bowler Man doesn’t.