trusting an obvious fallacy
Someone once told me I have a pretentious book collection. I can't remember whether I told him—though knowing myself I'm pretty sure I didn't—that I've often thought the same thing, and that I have something of a personal safeguard. You remember in The Great Gatsby where they're at the party, snooping around the house, and come across the library? Nodding at all the pretension, someone comments that, well, he didn't slit the pages—he hadn't actually gone /too/ far. So, I never take the price tag off anything I haven't read more than half of.
My sister used to jeer at me about my looks—she hated my clothes, she hated my attitude, and most importantly she hated that I wouldn't pluck my eyebrows and start wearing makeup. One day she came into my bathroom and declared triumph. "Ha! You started plucking your eyebrows!" she said, "that's a pair of eyebrow-plucking tweezers!" I have always hated and feared this logic—aside from the fact that I didn't know there was a difference between eyebrow-plucking tweezers and any other kind of tweezer (and still don't know what it is), how does that even follow? Post hoc ergo propter hoc, I believe (thank you Aaron Sorkin).
I notice, also, that there are some things that just don't work the way they do scripted. If you set yourself up with a comment that's meant to provoke a "why?", you never get it. If you're doing something that might be made poetic by someone dropping by, they don't. In fact, I think people must just be scared of getting themselves caught up in bad rom-com scenes or confusing games of "what's behind door number 3". That or they have plenty of things to do that don't involve showing up on someone's door step and asking if they want to wander around the neighborhood kicking a can.
But I wonder if we don't deliberately mislead people because we don't trust them, and it's nicer to think they don't trust us either. Or if thinking you've taken the high road blinds you to the benefits of another way around. And I wonder why it's easier to think about once it's obviously too late.
My sister used to jeer at me about my looks—she hated my clothes, she hated my attitude, and most importantly she hated that I wouldn't pluck my eyebrows and start wearing makeup. One day she came into my bathroom and declared triumph. "Ha! You started plucking your eyebrows!" she said, "that's a pair of eyebrow-plucking tweezers!" I have always hated and feared this logic—aside from the fact that I didn't know there was a difference between eyebrow-plucking tweezers and any other kind of tweezer (and still don't know what it is), how does that even follow? Post hoc ergo propter hoc, I believe (thank you Aaron Sorkin).
I notice, also, that there are some things that just don't work the way they do scripted. If you set yourself up with a comment that's meant to provoke a "why?", you never get it. If you're doing something that might be made poetic by someone dropping by, they don't. In fact, I think people must just be scared of getting themselves caught up in bad rom-com scenes or confusing games of "what's behind door number 3". That or they have plenty of things to do that don't involve showing up on someone's door step and asking if they want to wander around the neighborhood kicking a can.
But I wonder if we don't deliberately mislead people because we don't trust them, and it's nicer to think they don't trust us either. Or if thinking you've taken the high road blinds you to the benefits of another way around. And I wonder why it's easier to think about once it's obviously too late.
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