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[Jul. 19th, 2022|07:15 am] |
Don't Grin or You'll Have to Bear It
It is better in the long run to possess an abscess or a tumor
Than to possess a sense of humor.
People who have senses of humor have a very good time,
But they never accomplish anything of note, either despicable or sublime.
Because how can anybody accomplish anything immortal
When they realize they look pretty funny doing it and have to stop to
chortle?
Everybody admits that Michelangelo’s little things in the Sistine Chapel
are so immortal they have everybody reeling.
But I’ll bet he could never have dashed them off if he had realized how
undignified he looked lying up there with his stomach on the ceiling.
Yes, fatal handicaps in life are fortunately few,
But the most fatal of all is the faculty of seeing the other person’s
point of view.
And if your devoted mother suggest that you will someday be rich and
famous, why perish the suggestion.
That is, perish it if you are afflicted with the suspicion that there are two
sides to every question.
Good gracious, how could anyone corner wheat
If they were sissy enough to reflect that they were causing a lot of other
people to be unable to afford to eat?
Look at mayors and congressmen and presidents, always excepting
college presidents, such as Harvard’s Conant;
Do you think they could get elected if they admitted even to themselves
that there was anything to be said for their opponent?
No, no, genius won’t get you as far as common everyday facility
Unless it is accompanied by a conviction of infallibility,
And people who have a sense of humor are extremely gullible,
But not enough so, alas, to believe that they are infullible.
/Ogden Nash (1936)
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Nevaru atrast vai "corner wheat" varētu būt atsauce uz "A Corner in Wheat" (1909 American short silent film which tells of a greedy tycoon who tries to corner the world market on wheat, destroying the lives of the people who can no longer afford to buy bread.) Lai kā arī nebūtu, priekš manis tas labi sasaucas ar vakardienas Velbeka aplādi. Tur gan pretējs fokuss, viss kļuvis tik lēts, ka pārdevējam jāmirst nost. Grozi kā gribi, dzīvīgāk nekļūst, heh. |
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