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It's like eating potato chips, I suppose, but I can't deny that I really do like running into people with information I don't have -- stuff that I congenially dub, "weird shit."
There really are people out there whose parrots sing opera or who have intricate mountains of information about earth worms or strong and congenial women who hunt alligators. Weird shit is not stuff I really want to delve into and retain -- the salty tang lies in the fact that I simply didn't know and not-knowing was delicious and sometimes addicting.
Last night, on Skype, I was chatting with a friend who knows more than I do about guns and ammunition. He doesn't own a Confederate battle flag as far as I know and he isn't some come-to-Jesus expositor of "second-amendment rights," but he knows something about guns and ammo and enjoys target shooting and, let push come to shove, defending himself.
Last night he was telling me about .223 ammunition. Apparently it's one form of standard military ordnance. When I said that the bullet attached to the cartridge looked rather small, he said it was ... and deliberately so: "It's not designed to kill. It's designed to wound. A dead man is just a body. But a wounded man requires two buddies to help him out ... two less guys in action."
Weird shit. Tactically, it made very good sense, however offensive and depressing the environment of those tactics might be.
None of this made me want to run out and get a gun or shoot anybody. But it registered on my weird shit-o-meter, the potato-chip, can't-just-eat-one portion of my mind.
Is there anything that isn't "weird shit" to somebody ... stuff that refocuses the mind, spices up all the known-and-comforting-and-vaguely-boring quantities of the mind, and provides a change from potatoes? The freshness is so refreshing and the tendency is to seek out more and more and more of that sort of refreshment ... to delight and be scrubbed clean in a new way of seeing. More and more and more and more... how refreshing!
But there is an insane quality to it all as well. Will there ever come a time when the need for new "weird shit" ends? The refreshing quality is scrumptious, but seeking out more and more and more things to inspire that refreshment is exhausting. Wouldn't it be easier just to enjoy the refreshment without all that seeking and being wowed?
I don't imagine for a moment that I will get over or relinquish this old habit of delighting in "weird shit." The habit is probably too thoroughly ingrained. But that doesn't mean I can't reflect a little and notice that every moment is a time for refreshment ... weird shit I simply didn't know and couldn't possibly see coming, however much I might pretend to be in control and knew it was coming. What's the matter with being refreshed without gobbling all the potato chips of "weird shit?"
You are weird shit to me. I am weird shit to you. You are weird shit to you. I am weird shit to me. Isn't that simply the truth -- a truth that requires no energy at all? Isn't it refreshing? Every moment ... refreshing? I think maybe it is. Imagine how much you know about what you know nothing about. Talk about weird shit.
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