Texture

I was walking back from the grocery store today and I saw something that made me think about things. I think it made me think. About things.

Anyway, it made me think about how adulterated things are almost always more interested. Broken things or flawed things or impure things.

A baby cuddling an adorable puppy is great, for what it is. But it's pure. For those who aren't messed up (and by "messed up", I mean worse then me, since I egocentrically am the standard for mental health) they're going to say, "Awwww!" and they are going to be filled with a warm fuzzy feeling.

Even as I share those feelings... aren't they a bit inspid? There's no hook, so while it might give me warm fuzzies, it's not going to be that memorable.

Humor runs the same way, in my opinion. Bad words aren't just a means of communicating a punch line to be funny... they're a way to shock us and to create a hook that makes the funny more edgy and more interesting.

Fuck.

(Of course, timing is important, too.)

While it's possible to be funny without cussin', and it's possible to have an adorable scene without having any sort of unexpected twist... things just are better when that twist.

When twists become layers, to be peeled away and examined or discarded, that's when things can get complicated and more interesting. It's one of the reasons I enjoy reading history... there are so many things going on and so many levels of motivation and action that it's neigh overwhelming.

I bring all of this up because as I was walking back from the grocery store, I saw an old man smoking a cigarette. That simple scene brought a flood of thoughts to my mind and I have been chewing on it (not literally... the old guy ran away) since.

The thoughts included:

• the guy was homeless (I've seen him around the neighborhood a lot)
• he was smoking a cigarette... not from a pack, but a single cigarette
• he was guarding the cigarette from the wind and treating it like it was made of solid gold (not that solid gold needs to be protected from the wind)
• that cigarette was clearly bringing him a lot of pleasure... certainly more than most people that I know who smoke, who puff their way through them until they get their fix and/or until they have something more pressing, at which time they'll throw the remainder to the ground
• that cigarette was probably bringing him one step closer to some sort of horrible malady related to cancer or bad breathing
• he is old enough that if he's not cancerous at this stage, he might be OK
• might it not be worth trading a future of sickness for him in order to get pleasure from the "now"? Who am I to judge him?
• if he does get sick, I doubt his private medical insurance is going to cover it... it's going to be poor working stiffs like me who foot the tab
• I don't currently have a job, so calling myself a "working stiff" is not entirely accurate

And so it continued. And continueS. I think I need a hobby.

Might it have been more immediately gratifying to see a really hot woman walk down the sidewalk on my walk home? Or to see a boy scout escort a gaggle of young geese across the street? Perhaps. But seeing something with so much texture has proven to be much more interesting.