Perspicuity
- CHAPTER 2 -
To be direct and straightforward is both a blessing and a diagnosable disease.
It’s a wonderful trait for any free thinking mind. To express one’s self without any censorship can lead to great new insights. Or if you express yourself without censorship to the wrong person, it might lead to a heavy slap in the face, which by itself can be a great new insight for you.
But in general, people come with a set of pre-programmed social guidelines which are uploaded into your brain from the earliest moment that you can absorb social ques. And each culture and age group has their own ques.
This can lead to great comedic instances when someone doesn’t follow the appropriate social programming. When you ask an adult if you look ugly, 99% chance they will say “you look fine”, even though you may look like a train wreck. But when you ask a 6 year old if you look ugly, they will give you the train wrecked truth that you look like. So always be careful when asking a child a question that you are not ready to hear the truthful answer from.
Many comedians have made a living of telling stories about situations where people circumvent the correct social rules. The original masters of this are clowns. Terry Pratchett but it beautifully into words:
“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable. It was nice to know there was someone worse off than you.”
For me being direct and straightforward is a blessing, because to me it means efficiency. When you have to communicate vast amounts of difficult information to a lot of people fast, you do not have time to find the perfect opening line or the funny smiley to finish the important email. You might not make many friends by being direct with them, but the ones that do stick around are probably just as diagnosably diseased as you are, with pure perspicuity. And that makes for good company on any rainy day.
Society may think that you are simple, inconsiderate and stupid when you are direct. Like not all your lights are on upstairs. But people are wrong thinking that being simple means the same as being stupid. Maybe your light bulb is just screwed half way in, and maybe you like your upstairs lights to be dimmed and flickering off and on every now and then. It’s all about perspective.
Everyone has become too sensitive. So every once in a while, make a dark and inconsiderate joke for the sake of the joke.
“If you think of something funny, you have to say it. Win, lose or draw.” -Ricky Gervais
You owe it to humor and yourself.
Thanks Ricky.
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