As occasionally happens, Kristi and I embarked into a deep, moving and intellectual conversation Sunday while driving to the far away land of Azle. Now, for those of you with weaker minds, you may want to sit down and prepare yourself, because I am about to drop some serious knowledge on you.
Between a riveting discussion on the theory of relativity and musing over the cure for world hunger we asked ourselves , “What is the most under appreciated invention of all time?” Now to understand to complexities of our conversation you must know there were qualifiers for this ever so important topic. First, the invention could not be anything that the general public would consider a major invention, i.e. the automobile. Second, the invention had to be timeless, a tool that has or could be relevant for centuries. Finally, the invention must be used by enough people to be considered something the average person would know about.
Now several inventions met our strict qualifications such as, velcro, fried pickles, bendy straws, and boxer briefs (an invention to be forever more known as banana beds, free and breezy like a hammock with surface area and comfort of a bed). However after heated debate the spork won out as the most under used and under appreciated invention to ever be conceived.
The spork may seriously be one of man’s greatest accomplishments, yet so few people actually use one. Think of the convenience, one utensil serving two purposes. You can scoop and stab all in the same motion cutting down on eating time so that you can use your precious hours more wisely, like publishing a blog. Not to mention the spork was a pioneer being “green” before “green” was trendy. How, you ask? First the production of the spork uses far less valuable earthly resources such as rare metals like aluminum and stuff. Secondly, why waste time and water washing a spoon and a fork separately, when you could wash a spork and be done with it?
Now, naturally we could not end our conversation there. We also had to conclude, “What is the most useless and over used invention of all time?”
This conversation was short, as I, in my infinite wisdom, had already spent countless hours pondering this ever so important question, coming to the conclusion that swim trunk webbing is the most useless waste ever created.
This topic is a sore point for me. I often am thrown out of fine retail establishments for entertaining the question, “Why must I pay for this useless piece of fabric inside my shorts?” If I wanted to wear mesh underwear I would buy mesh underwear. That stuff is scratchy, unsupportive and hello, have you ever seen someone going commando in white swim trunks with mesh in them. People don’t want to see my junk and I surely don’t want to see theirs. That brings up a whole other dilemma, too. Do you wear underwear when that stuff is sewn into your shorts? Do you wear underwear swimming at all? Who knows, the little mesh flap has confused us all.
While I understand this conversation may be to erudite for many of you I pray that you at the very least heed our superior intellect by switching to sporks and mesh-less shorts. Stay enlightened, my friends.
I have been fighting the urge to enter the world of blogging for sometime and have finally succumb to the temptations to let the whole world (or at least the 2 people who give rip) know what I have to say.
To be honest I have resisted this blogging movement, partly because by natural process I am getting older and less technologically relevant and partly because I have always looked at blogging as our virtual fifty foot neon sign flashing, “HEY LOOK AT ME, I’M IMPORTANT!!!” I already struggle a bit with humility; balancing the fine line of leading by example and drawing attention to my every action and deed. However, as I have began to read the blogs of the people I thought I knew, I have found that there is so much I tend to miss. Am I not listening to true life of those who surround me, or are they not talking? I have a feeling it is a little bit of both.
At the risk of sounding much older than I am, there was a time, even in my generation, when the world seemed a lot smaller and more intimate. A time when our circle of influence may have consisted of a total of 40 to 50 people of whom only a few we honestly shared life with. Maybe this was just my experience in the booming metropolis of Azle, TX. Actually, I can’t even claim that. I lived in Briar. My world consisted of the neighbor across the field and pet cow named Buttercup, who ultimately ended up as a steak.
Anyways, my point is that now I may come into physical contact with 40 to 50 people a day. Outside of that I have 150 or so “friends” on Facebook ranging from family to people I knew high school, to people I knew in college, to people I work with, to people I don’t really know, but I thought it would be rude to reject their invite. And each of them have 100 to 500 “friends” their connected to. I find myself now with an infinite number of “friends” and yet somehow have very few friendships.
The problem is that I have built most of these friendships upon the occasional polite smile and nod (since nodding is more manly than waving), and the ever so popular status post, telling everyone in two sentences or less what just happened in the last five minutes and which Office cast member I am most like. (By the way, I am Jim, but aren’t we all?) All this time I have a new, true, friend who just experienced an unspeakable tragedy in his life and because I have become so inept at communication, all I have to offer is, “How are things going?” Luckily, he was honest enough to say, “Horrible.”
