I had a rather extraordinary thought last night.
I realized that most or all those people who will never, ever, ever admit they are wrong about anything ever actually believe they are and have never ever been wrong about anything in their entire lives.
That blows my freaking mind. Imagine living in a subjective world where you utterly infallible. Anything you ever say is the golden truth just because you said it. In your mind is a version of the world based on everything you have ever said and absolutely nothing short of a serious brain event can change your mind on any of it.
Spelled out like that. I realize it can’t be that simple. Some part of their minds must be capable of amendment based on new information.
Try as they might, people cannot shut down their faculties of reason completely.
So it must be a bit like the “doublespeak” in Orwell’s 1984. Part of them knows the truth and is the guardian of their true but deeply buried sense of reality while the rest of them can frolic in the happy world where they are never, ever wrong.
Pride must be a major factor too. There’s never being wrong and there is never admitting that you were or are wrong.
It is possible to change your mind most of the way without ever having to explicitly admit you were wrong even to yourself.
It takes a surprising amount of mental dexterity in one who would appear so dull, thought. It’s like these people are constantly running to stand still…. dodging and weaving facts and reality like they’re Neo in the Matrix.
Still, it’s mindboggling to me to imagine living in a world where your being wrong about something is not even a possibility.
And it brings up a question that haunts me : can these people change their minds?
To me, it is entirely possible that being able to change your mind based on new information takes a certain amount of intellectual strength and flexibility that not everyone has, and that therefore in order to maintain any kind of stable sense of reality, some people absolutely cannot afford to doubt what they already know.
Nothing less that their entire sense of reality is on the line. They can’t separate and isolate one piece of knowledge about the world and remove it and replace it like a surgeon giving someone a new hip.
If one piece is taken out, the whole thing collapses. And that’s not even taking into account the various emotional needs their beliefs address.
Like, say, a white supremacist’s racism addressing their need for something to address a deep sense of inferiority fostered by a poor background. Or a social conservative railing against gay marriage (or whatever) because deep down they have a very deep need for predictability and order that makes them fear all change.
What I am saying is that asking people to change their minds is a pretty big ask. It’s about a lot more than abstract information.
Besides, when was the last time you changed your mind on something big?
That’s different, though, because you’re RIGHT. Right?
Unlike those sheep.
Yeah, not like them at all.
More after the break.
Um, don’t read the title before watching.
Way to spoil the punchline, dickhead!
Fight, chicken! Fight!
Ever since we moved into this apartment and I started ordering in on Saturday nights on a regular basis, I have been tres annoyed[1] by the fact that our local KFC, located three blocks away, closes at 7:30 pm on Saturday nights.
Which blows my mind. Friday and Saturday nights are the two biggest nights for any restaurant that does delivery and that is approximately all of them now, so… WTF?
It’s like closing your breakfast buffet at 8 am on Sundays when you are next door to a very busy church.
Like what, do you hate money?
So when it turned out fave sushi place[2] closed before I could order (my bad entirely), I was bummed, and started scrolling through the homepage of Door Dash disconsolately whilst I struggling with my angst.
But just as I was about to start enumerating all the ways I’ve failed as a person (there’s seventeen!), I spotted a Door Dash entry for a place called Fighter Chicken.
So I thought, what the hell, KFC doesn’t want my money. so why not give them a shot?
Answer : because it turns out they are terrible.
Their chicken commits the two mortal sins of fried chicken :
- The breading has no flavour. Not a hint of spice. None. I can’t put up with that. I am not looking for something to make me breathe fire or sweat like Sidney Greenstreet in Casablanca, but there has to be like a KFC level of spiciness or I take my ball and go home. Hell, the breading didn’t even LOOK appetizing. Instead of the usual golden brown it was a pale tan, like a black person who’s been sick for a long time. Disgusting. AND….
- It was not cooked all the way through. Ergo, it was rubbery and fatty near the skin. So right under the flavorless breading was a layer of gooey grease and I absolutely cannot stand that. The breading thing is a matter of taste but the goo layer activates something far deeper and more primal in me : a full body rejection. Like a disgust reaction amped up to 11, but luckily without nausea. It links into my revulsion for all undercooked meat that I have had since I got serious food poisoning when I was 15.
So fuck you, Fighter Chicken. You suuuuck,
Now I need something to restore my faith in chicken.
Ah, thank you, Chicken Attack. Your gold-pressed comedy always makes me feel better about the world and life in general.
And because of that, I refuse to watch any of the sequels.
Don’t want to risk spoiling the magic of the original.
The modern world has made me very suspicious of sequels.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.