We all know what a paradox is: two physicians. Thank you! I’ll be here all week! Don’t forget to tip your servers!
Seriously, a paradox is a statement or set of statements that result in the complete opposite being true. An example would be “this statement is false.” In other words, if the statement is true, then it’s false, and vice versa. Or to put it another way,
Statement 1: The next sentence is true. Statement 2: The previous statement is false.
This puts us in a vicious circle.
😡
And there’s the ever-popular
“Can’t” is not a word in my vocabulary.
Well, if it’s not in your vocabulary, why did you use it?
The Irish comedian Hal Roach once claimed that, when he and a bunch of his friends were standing around somewhere, a police officer came up and said “If you’re gonna stand here, you’ll be be moving along.”
Wikipedia, which as everyone knows is The Blogger’s Best Friend™, has a whole list of paradoxes. You can see that this is one of those discussions that could go on for a while.
At what age would you like to restart your life? What would you do differently?
I guess this is a follow-on to the question from last week about what I wish I could do.
Since my stroke and the subsequent events that have led to me being retired on disability, I’ve given lots of thought to these questions. Probably too much thought, actually. Brooding over past mistakes is a highly-addictive and unproductive use of my time. Fortunately, I’ve learned to limit it to the hours when I’m in bed and have been awakened by a full bladder, which usually gives me a few minutes before I fall asleep and wander the hallways and highways of my dreams. There are so many things I’d do differently, and they all happened at different stages of my life.
I’d like to restart my life on March 25, 1973, the day I turned 17. This was the end of my junior year and start of my senior year of high school. My mother and I had a difference of opinion about where I should go to university, and I didn’t fight hard enough for my choice. As a result, I ended up going to a school I didn’t want to attend. My first two years at university were a disaster, and I didn’t care. I don’t like myself when I’m passive-aggressive like that, but that was the person I was then.
There was a lot of good that came of that, though: I ended up transferring to one of the schools I did want to attend, where I met the love of my life, I graduated a semester early, we were married and have lived happily ever after. Had I gone there to start with, Mary and I probably would have ended up being two ships that pass in the night. Divine Intervention works in mysterious ways…
(That was short. That’s a record for me.)
I and a group of very nice people, let by the lovely and talented Mama Kat, do this Writer’s Workshop thing every Thursday. Kat posts a list of a few prompts to her blog every Tuesday or Wednesday, from which we select one and write on it, then share our essays with the other folks doing it (and, by extension, the other readers of our blogs). It’s tons of fun and Kat told me she doesn’t mind if I invite other people to join in. If you’re interested, click the icon below and read all about it.
Oxymoron is a word formed from the Greek words ὀξύς (oksus), “sharp, pointed, keen,” and μωρός (moros), “dull, stupid, foolish.” An oxymoron is a contradiction in terms. Even the word is a contradiction in terms (i.e. “sharp dull”).
We mostly think in terms of comical oxymorons, such as
jumbo shrimp
educational television
military intelligence
business ethics
civil war
happily married
Microsoft Works
tall shortstop
The term sophomore (used to denote the second year of high school or college in the US) is an oxymoron, (sophos, “smart” + moros, “stupid”).
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is full of them: “brawling love,” “loving hate,” “heavy lightness” etc.
Sgt. Schultz, played by the great John Banner, had multiple opportunities to bust Hogan and his men for their extracurricular activities (demolitions, helping POW’s from other camps escape Germany, impersonating Nazis, etc.), but always managed to look the other way for a piece of apple strudel or a chocolate bar. Often, he would walk away, exclaiming “I KNOW NOTHING!” Banner himself escaped Austria for the US when the Nazis took over and spent World War II serving with distinction as an Army supply sergeant.
One-Liner Wednesday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word from Brylcreem. A little dab’ll do ya!
There’s a story about Nick Colionne, who started playing professionally at 15 years old: He would play in the clubs around Chicago, and to appear older he’d draw a mustache on himself with eyeliner. One night, his grandmother caught wind that he was playing in a club, went down to the club, wiped the mustache off of him, and hauled him home.
He managed to grow up and divides his time between being a smooth jazz guitarist and being an elementary school teacher in Elgin, Illinois. His first album, It’s My Turn, was released in 1994, and his most current release is last year’s Just Being Me.
From 2016’s The Journey, here is “Morning Call.”
From 2006’s Keepin’ It Cool (recorded in part at The Soundbank in Northfield, Illinois, my hometown while I was in high school and college), here is “Can You Feel It.”
