Flower + Cloud = Floud
You’re standing on the high-dive platform.
Below is the pool. That is death.
Your friend just pushed you off the platform. That is life.
Are you going to smile and make a splash, or curse at your friend the whole way down until you’re under water?
“You don’t need to know what you’re looking for. You need to discover it.”
You come home to a house you’ve kept clean for a week solid after spring cleaning, but today you are tired. You drop your stuff on the floor and go to the kitchen to grab some snacks. You’ve worked hard this week. You decide you deserve a treat. You can’t remember the last time you had a milkshake. You scoop out the ice cream, Oreos, chocolate syrup, and some more ice cream, and hold the “blend” button. The blender decides that now is a good time to commit suicide and grind its gears, and not your milkshake, until you hear a pop and see a little wisp of smoke trail away from your newly departed appliance. You now understand the phrase ‘giving up the ghost,’ but you still don’t have a milkshake. You find yourself on the couch minutes later with a long spoon and the top half of the blender in your hand, scraping out the last bites of your milkstir, and realizing that the top half of the blender actually isn’t a bad way to eat a snack. It even has a handle and a spout. Over the next few weeks you keep using the top half of the blender to eat while the bottom half still sits plugged in on your counter top. No, it still doesn’t work. And now you’ve gotten used to it being there that it has just become part of the kitchen counter; a fixture, a statue, a memorial even. A few months later you invite friends over and one of them gets really drunk and asks you why you couldn’t just make margaritas from scratch when the blender is sitting right there. You tell him, “oh, it doesn’t work.” Like it’s supposed to not work. And he just stares at you for a little while because he’s obviously drunk, and nothing is wrong with you, or the blender.
What is wrong with people?
What do you mean?
Like, relationships. You don’t see bears in the woods cheating on each other.
True, but bears aren’t people.
Sometimes it seems hard to tell.
Yeah, but the difference between us and bears is that bears don’t know that they’re going to die. That’s why they don’t just start yolo-ing all over the place.
They can’t be completely clueless.
It’s not called the animal condition, it’s called the human condition.
I beg to differ. Animals in general avoid things that would kill them. I’m almost positive that they know they can die.
Yeah, that they can die; not that they will die. It’s nothing more than a reflex.
So if you knew you were going to die, would you go on a crazed sex rampage, or would you keep to yourself and one other person?
What are you talking about? I’m not going to die.
I never really understood Friday the 13th. Is everyone on the planet supposed to have horribly bad luck on this day? Is there some sort of luck-karma built up that is all released on one day so every other day can be pleasant? It’s just a day, and I happen to like fridays, so why does it have to be bad luck all of a sudden? Why can’t it be a day of good luck? Like all of a sudden everyone wins the lottery, or all the lights turn green, or your boss says to take the day off? That’s not really even what I wonder about though; it’s superstitions in general. My theory is that superstitions just prevent us from doing stupid things that are really just common sense in the first place, and “bad luck” is just all of the pins you knock down while bowling down the ‘stupid lane’ with bumpers one. You hear people say “Don’t walk under a ladder, it’s bad luck.” “If a black cat walks across your path, it’s bad luck.” “If you open an umbrella inside, it’s bad luck.” “If you break a mirror…” etc.
Really, this is what I think happens:
Don’t walk under a ladder because that’s stupid. Something could fall on you, or you could knock it over.
If a black cat, probably a stray if it’s out alone, walks across your path then you’re probably in a bad neighborhood, so stay away from ‘black cats.’
If you open an umbrella inside you’ll just look stupid because it never rains inside.
And don’t break mirrors! Why would you break a mirror? It makes a huge mess and it sucks to replace. Furthermore you or someone else could end up stepping on glass. Be careful!
So just use some common sense… or else it’ll be bad luck.