Just this last summer, I came up with one of the Things I Know that is not worded nearly as badly as some of the others. Looked good enough for a TIK number, so I gave it one…TIK #213.

Thing I Know #213. Being a grown-up is all about being able to choose from two options, both of which suck — selecting the one that sucks less. We seem to have a lot of people who’ve managed to reach legal maturity without cultivating this skill; they want a good feeling out of every decision they make, and every decision they see someone else making. I don’t remember anyone, with or without the authority to do so, promising anyone else that this goal must always be within our reach. So when real life makes this an impossibility, nobody should be surprised.

I’ll have to say I have only foggy recollections of what my inspiration was. Perhaps it was my project rescuing an eighteen-year-old car, which had served me faithfully, after someone backed into it and caused thousands of dollars worth of damage that the insurance company said was a total loss. That’s a great example. Two options — pour lots of money into an old machine that’s already at end-of-life, or go car-shopping when I have no intention of going car-shopping, for something that wouldn’t be nearly as reliable…both options suck. All who doubt me, pick one of them, affix their name to the choice they’ve made, and wait for the criticism to sail on in. You won’t wait long.

And hey, I didn’t hit anyone. This is something that happened to me. But that’s life.

Or it probably had something to do with Iraq, with a bunch of other smaller issues tossed into the mix. Here are all these damn dirty democrats giving us these long lists of reasons why going into Iraq was a mistake, and all these reasons have to do with why we should feel bad about it. Hey, great, point made, there were disadvantages involved in what was done, and we all feel bad about them. But that’s only half the battle, Mister Argumentative Bush-Hating Person. How about answering some of the tougher questions — as the people you criticize, have done? What was the issue with our policy, and what should that policy be going forward? Nobody said a peep about that. If you waited a very long time, someone would step forward and say “we SHOULD HAVE gone into this other place, over here…” And that comes close.

But it still shows a childlike reluctance to choose from two choices, when both choices suck. Go into Iraq, or just admit we’re never going into Iraq and neither is anybody else. Those are two sucky choices, alright. I have strong issues against President Bush now. But he does deserve credit for being an adult. He chose one of the choices. Many among his critics have yet to demonstrate to me, according to TIK #213, that they are adults. They seem to want a good feeling out of every decision made…by anyone…about anything. Which is a wonderful definition of childlike thinking, if ever there was one.

Yes, I can see Iraq is a great example. On the feeling-bad part, I have deep sympathy. I take great offense at this invitation that I should hop on the bandwagon and, like the damn dirty donks, say to myself…”and since that ultimately makes me feel bad, I should look back on it and declare it a mistake, even though I made it only indirectly.” Like all thinking adults, I take great offense at this.

As a man who was put on the planet, presumably to do something to help others, I’m not here to feel good about every single decision I make.

As a man who was put in a somewhat good place, with somewhat significant advantages and comforts and tools and toys…I can’t think of a damn thing I owe to anyone who came before me, who felt good about every decision they made. Or even aspired to such a silly thing.

And there are many other issues besides Iraq that offend me this way. Health care, minimum wage, gun control, death penalty, members of Congress trolling bathrooms for gay sex. I deeply resent this subtle undertone that all correct decisions must make everyone feel good, and that if a decision fails to do this, it must be the wrong one.

Now, I don’t know if Dr. Thomas Sowell reads my blog. I have long operated under the premise that hardly anybody does. But how then do you explain this gem, which popped up in his “Random Thoughts” just this last Tuesday?

People who refuse to face the reality of hard choices are forever coming up with some clever “third way”– often leading to worse disasters than either of the hard choices.

I’ve been robbed, but I’m not calling the police. I’m quite flattered. MORE than flattered. This was much less likely to be a case of unattributed intellectual theft, than great minds thinking alike. And should I ever be inclined to doubt that, I have only to read a little bit further down at the Doctor’s other thoughts. I tell ya, if I’m to be “copied” this way, Dr. Sowell’s name is very, very high on my list of people I’d like to catch in the act of so copying. I just love the way this guy thinks.

Wise people created civilization over the centuries and clever people are dismantling it today. You can see it happening just by channel surfing on TV or hear it in rap music or read it in the pompous nonsense of academics and judges.
:
Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.
:
It is amazing how many people see no problem with having pay levels determined according to what third parties would like to see, instead of according to supply and demand.
:
Chutzpah department: When disbarred former D.A. Michael Nifong mailed his Bar card back to his state Bar Association, he included a note decrying “the fundamental unfairness” with which the Bar had treated him. This from a man who was ready to ruin three lives and polarize a community, in order to win an election.

Back to the subject at hand.

I would be just FINE with repealing any age-limit on voting based on chronological measurements. I look around at the average eighteen-year-old, and I think…wait…that’s not an adult. And then I see some folks aren’t even ready to blow out their eighteen candles, and they are more than adults.

So a certain birthday has very little to do with what’s needed in a voting booth. My test seems to make so much more sense — can you choose from two options, both of which suck? In my fantasy world, that becomes the new standard. You can have your new voter card, if you can choose between…I dunno…me deflating all four tires in your car, or me coming to your house and drinking all your beer. Hopefully, we can come up with some choices that are less silly and artificial than those. But I would want both choices to suck. If you’ve got the mental acumen needed to declare one of those choices the “lesser of two evils,” accept the consequences and move on, you can vote. If not, see you next time.

SNUL: “Sorry No Updates Lately.” (n.): A post in a blog that is constructed for no purpose whatsoever, other than to take note of the author’s incredibly busy schedule lately, or loss of Internet connection, or taking on a second job, or what-not.

2. One who regularly writes and posts SNULs.

(v.) The act of publishing SNULs.

I don’t want to be too hard on the SNULs, because I have some very good blogger friends who’ve been known to SNUL from time to time and some of them do it in a way that it can be entertaining. I hope none of them come by, see this, and get their knickers in a twist about it…I don’t mean any offense to the individuals. But overall, I see this as a form of pollution. It’s like having a dog in a super-dense suburban neighborhood (more on this below). Or fisking, or phlacing, or WAGTOCPAN, or letting your child push around a shopper-in-training grocery cart at the store. These things all have it in common that they involve a magnitude of environmental damage on a curvilinear relationship with how many people are doing it. Two adorable moppets in a trendy upscale grocery store pushing “shopper in training” carts, cause four times as much destruction to an “environment” of sorts, as just one them would. Three moppets would do nine times the damage…four would do sixteen. The simple formula seems to hold, indefinitely.

Given that the above is true, then, each person who contemplates a prospect of engaging in any of the above, in order to be environmentally responsible, would have to first consider how many people are already doing it. If the saturation is already on the heavy side, the ancillary damage being done by each new participant would become considerable.

And so this blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, frowns with schoolmarmish disdain on the practice of SNUL. We note that the Internet as we know it in 2007, is saturated with godawful amounts of it already; therefore the ancillary damage done by each new participant is unacceptably high. The saturation that exists already is sufficient to elevate this allocation of Internet space, into the Big Six. There is, of course, porn; there are messages excoriating President Bush either for being evil, creative and sophisticated enough to fool everybody, or for being such a drooling idiot as to disgust everybody (oftentimes both at once, believe it or not); there are snotty atheist comments about my “sky fairy,” carefully calculated to inflict maximum insult on believers like myself, and holding the atheist religion as the one true religion, just because, while simultaneously scolding “real” religions for supposedly doing exactly the same thing; there are MySpace pages with horrible odious background music. There are miscellaneous items such as “Registry Cleaner Recommended,” how to make it bigger and give her the satisfaction she deserves, refinance your house, there’s the perky lady congratulating you for winning two iPod Nanos…and then there is SNUL. “Sorry I haven’t made any updates lately, but…”

People who say they hate blogs, are quick to criticize bloggers for daring to upload inane drivel along the lines of “I can’t stand Jack in the Box heads on car antennas” or some such. With the phenomenon of SNUL, the blog-haters do have a point. I might, conceivably, have an interest in reading about the pet peeve with Jack in the Box heads…but overall — and I realize this is a crass generalization, loaded with problematic exceptions — SNUL is bereft of value or purpose, and is just plain tacky.

Think of blogging as jogging. Yeah I’m a poet and I don’t know it…let’s say Eva Longoria is your next door neighbor, and of course she’s into physical fitness and so is jogging every single morning at six a.m. You like to get up at seven, but of course you’re going to adjust your morning routine. I mean, have you seen her on that show? Good Lord. And of course Eva knows you’re watching; there are very few people who are more appealing to the eye when exercising, than the lovely and talented Eva. So she conducts her little fashion show, and you continue to peek…all of which is somewhat tacky, but somewhat acceptable, what with it being a free country and all.

And then one afternoon Eva cruises by in her convertible with a bullhorn in hand and yells at you, “SORRY I HAVEN’T HAD TIME TO DO ANY JOGGING LATELY.” And the tacky-factor just freakin’ skyrockets. That’s how I see the “sorry no updates lately” thing.

Again, I have no criticism for the individuals. Some of them have managed to build up incredibly voluminous followings, and the argument could be plausibly made that in their place it would be tacky not to SNUL. I can see that. But the whole does more damage than the sum of its parts.

And so we don’t SNUL here. We loathe SNUL.

However — as House of Eratosthenes was relocated physically, as in street addresses, during the least convenient week-and-a-half imaginable, the off-line messages have been stacking up. People want to know where I’ve been. I can see I’ve drifted off into that territory, it could be said, where one may be accused more fairly of substandard manners by engaging lack of SNUL, than the SNUL itself. Perhaps it would have been considerate to have gone ahead and SNUL’d. Or it would’ve been just plain good manners. “The Blog That Nobody Reads” is, after all, just a figurative term, and I’ve been reminded fairly often that there are people who do read it. They were left out in the cold when I didn’t post something saying what I was doing.

Well, hey. Part of the reason it’s called The Blog That Nobody Reads, is it’s built for the consumption of people who are mature enough to cope with the world as it really is, not as they would like it to be. I think all the nobodies have figured this out over the years, and that’s one of the reasons why this pastime has resulted in some great friendships. But the flip-side of that, of course, is that my personal life is one of the things in this huge thing we call “the world,” and I may very well disappear again. That’s just life. But anyway, back to the subject at hand — heh. Sorry no updates lately. I’ve been moving my stuff.

And doing a fairly piss-poor job of packing dishes & nick-nacks in boxes ahead of the move, like I should’ve been doing.

Anyway, it’s a good move. The last one, three years ago, was for economy. This one was for comfort. Not that the old place was uncomfortable or anything, I’ve lived in much worse before. But by this time, I’m not too sorry to see it go; it was a good place to live at the time, value was alright, neighborhood was much better than it could’ve been. But over the last year or so, it’s started to go to the dogs. Literally. Dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs.

I don’t appreciate that one bit. I actually like dogs, but my feeling is they’re being mistreated if they lack purpose. People shouldn’t own them just because they like having a thinking, breathing being utterly dependent on them. That’s an ego trip, and it’s abusive. Once you reach the point where everyone has to have a dog as a matter of ritual, that’s unfair to the animal. I mean, think about horses in the same context and you might see what I mean. Horses require even more upkeep than dogs. What if everybody started going out and getting horses, just because they felt they had to have a horse.

While carrying my second load of boxes for yesterday out of my nearly-empty apartment, I had to stop, heavy box teetering precariously on my shoulders, and negotiate for right-of-way with a girl walking her dog. While carrying the third load, I had to stop and do the same thing with a professional dog-walker who was out walking three dogs. While carrying the fourth load, I had to stop and do the same thing yet again, with a middle-aged woman walking her dog. The issue, the theme of this post overall, is a whole being greater than the sum of its parts…and the place I just left, nice place to live as it is, I think is a great example now. They’re in a position to say — no more. All existing pets are grandfathered in; new applicants, with pets, need not apply. The saturation point has been met and surpassed.

And, of course, none of the dog-walkers I saw on my last day, looked the least bit ready to use a conveniently-located plastic poop-scoop dispenser, and that gets into yet another pet peeve of mine. But like Winnie The Pooh says, that is a story for another day.

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, is frequently targeted for advice on how to mold and shape the writing so that more people will read it. By far the most common tip that is e-mailed to me, is to pick up a copy of Strunk & White. I consider that to be an “umbrella” category though, because Strunk & White cover a lot of different things, and the folks who say I need to use it very seldom elaborate on where I failed to follow it.

Occasionally someone will offer a little more detail and tell me I’m comma-crazy (rule 5). Guilty. Repentant. Working on it.

Other folks tell me I need to confine myself to active-voice (rule 11). I plead not guilty. Passive-voice is something that, now and then, I do drag out of the tool drawer and crank up, and perhaps the nerves of some readers are gotten-upon by such a thing. I can see everyone has their own idea of what a healthy active-passive quotient would be. One hundred percent passive voice would produce a migraine in the noggin of the most patient consumer. We, here, hold the ideal ratio to be somewhere around seventy-thirty active-passive. Maybe eighty-twenty.

Faithful Strunk & White scholars insist on nothing less than one-hundred-zip, it seems. Passive-voice, the oracle has decreed, must go the way of the dodo bird.

We hold the use of active-voice, here, to be a somewhat parallel experience to being a nice guy and trying to get yourself a date. Everyone understands there’s an old cliche about nice guys finishing last; some of us uphold it as a serious fact, and others regard it as a joke and nothing more. There’s a rather clean gender-division along that line, by the way. But the wisest and most reasonable among us, regardless of our plumbing, understand it to be a humorous chestnut with more than a grain of truth to it. If you want to be competetively nice, you must defer. If you want to be competitively deferential, you must withdraw your preferences and opinions. If you wish to competitively withdraw your preferences and opinions, you decide nothing; and if you aren’t deciding anything, why does the object of your affection need you around?

Beyond a point of dimininishing returns, being a nice guy deprives your lady of your personality. And then you become boring. Well, active-voice works the same way — and “one-hundred-zip,” by definition, is beyond any point of diminishing returns you’d care to pencil in.

But there’s something else. In the same way that nice guys often end up not breeding, active-voice seems to be burdened by a consistent gelding-like failure to establish any kind of legacy. Memorable quotations, more often than not, use passive-voice. Ralph Waldo Emerson never said “Simple minds have a hobgoblin, and it is consistency.” Oscar Wilde didn’t say “The artist paints a portrait of himself and not of the sitter when he paints with feeling.” Within the pantheon of immortal quotations, there are remarkable exceptions but the ratio seems to be inverted overall. Maybe sixty percent passive-voice, in violent rebellion against Strunk & White Rule 11. Maybe more than that.

I view it as a metaphor, an icon representing other things we do in the human condition. We seem to have a predilection for holding each other to rules, which in turn are designed for no higher purpose than to keep any one person from becoming distinguishable.

Another thing I notice is that when we give advice, we’re prepared for only two outcomes: The advised follows our instruction, or else proves himself incapable of following advice. The middle-of-the-road possibility — that the person advised is open to advice, or is even searching for advice, but it turns out your tidbit somehow didn’t make the cut — is something for which it seems very few are prepared. We expect to miss the mark when we apply for jobs, or spit at floating leaves from a high bridge, or take a lady out on a first-date. But not when we offer advice on things other people have written.

Having said that, however, I hope people don’t stop offering advice. The revelation that the advisor is, himself, being observed and his behavior is being used to refine some theories and help support others, can have a chilling effect.

Every now and then, I get a reminder that I’m more than halfway between the crib and the crypt. Sometimes, it’s something else that’s responsible. Tonight, it’s Google.

GOOGLESWIVEL (n.): A rotary motion one makes in a chair, usually in the neighborhood of 180 degrees. Immediately before it, you are engaged in a conversation with someone, and immediately after it you use your computer to prove how right you are.

Just a quick note to let you know. If you’ve been trying to post comments here in the last week or so and it hasn’t been working for you, you’re not the only one. And you’re not crazy.

And it should work now.

Apologies for the inconvenience, and thanks to blogger friend Phil for pointing out what was busted.

Jotting down a thousand things is not an accomplishment. When I’ve got an opinion, I’ve got it, whether I scribble it away or not.

The accomplishment is in meeting up with the “nobodies” who read The Blog That Nobody Reads. I haven’t met any of you face-to-face, and who knows, maybe every last one of you is a puppy-raping child-abducting psychopath. I mean, hypothetically.

But in my correspondences with you, online and off, I have to comment on one thing: I’m just completely blown way by the points you have to make about things. This blog — which, throughout two years, I’ve commented repeatedly “nobody reads anyway” — is read by some incredibly deep thinkers. I would never have anticipated this. I am pleasantly surprised that this is the case.

Some folks can hear “Yes, sir! I agree completely! You are so right, sir!” all day long…every day…seven days a week…never get tired of hearing it. I am not one of those people. So I’m glad that when people comment, and they have a different opinion, they at least know why it is that they think the things they think. Mercifully, this blog tends to attract that kind of reader, moreso than most of what we call “blogs.” I’d like to think I’ve been doing something to make it so, although of course I can’t prove it.

You know who you are. Give yourselves a hand. CYL.

Update: By coincidence, Mein Blogovault turned two years old this week.