HOW COME THIS AND THAT? | redclaydiary.com

Life, actually…

HOW COME THIS AND THAT?

Just when I once again thought that I had learned everything worth knowing, the clock ticks forward to remind me, “That ain’t true.”

Not only is there more to learn each day…there’s more to learn than I’ll ever have time to learn in one lifetime.

It’s mostly tiny things that impose themselves…but these bits and pieces of reality tend to cluster eventually. Soon, they gang up and force me to listen up.

Let’s start small. There’s this word that I’ve only recently noticed. The word is OUTDENT.

Yep, outdent is my new word today. It’s fascinating because it is perfectly logical and quite obvious. Which may explain why I never noticed it before.

You and I know what INDENT means. It has been a part of my life since grammar school. I to this day still INDENT my paragraphs. Don’t you?

Outdent is the opposite. Maybe invented by a contrarian who wanted to shake the reader’s attention span.

Maybe not.

Sigh.

I have decided not to follow that endless tunnel, the labyrinth that explains everything so thoroughly (from every possible angle) that it becomes excruciatingly boring and meaningless.

So, instead of messing with your brain and mine, I have decided to accept OUTDENT as part of my life. I have also decided not to use this word at all…until exactly the right moment. A moment that may never come.

Let’s take a break now. Let us accept all words both meaningless and meaningful. Then, let us decide to use these words judiciously. Each time we hear a carelessly tossed unexamined word, each time we hear a hackneyed usage so poorly thought out that it has become laughable…let’s pause and come up with a simpler, more precisely communicative word that will snap crackle and pop its way into philosophical usefulness.

There, I’ve done it. I’ve managed to use too many words to explain the importance of using fewer words.

Writing thoughts down is wickedly funny sometimes