The Wire

If someone called Sue owned a venue, she could host a comedy night called "Hilarity in Sue's" (like 'hilarity ensues', which sounds similar, thus: joke).

I just come up with this stuff!

I've always been blessed with a tremendous knack for realising that one thing sounds similar to another.

It's Friday afternoon. Things have slowed. The leaves are falling. The last traces of pancake batter have long-since evaporated. There's no escaping it. We're all braced for one of our periodic lurches forward in time. I don't keep anything in my shirt pocket that I don't want to lose.

On the intersection between Victoria Road and Lucerne Road in Summertown, there's a length of wire that used to belong to someone, but now belongs to everyone. It fell from private to public ownership so quickly, no-one even noticed. It was less than a second. One person's loss is the world's gain.

But that person lives in the world too. His or her loss is his or her gain. She breaks even, everyone else on the planet gains.

Private ownership benefits no-one. There are people out there who want to stop the wire from falling. They want to sew our pockets shut. They see the loss of their wire as a personal hardship. But it isn't. They haven't lost anything.

The thing they hate is not the losing. What they hate is the notion that someone else will gain. They'd rather have useless pockets than see anyone else happy.

They deny this. Occasionally, they'll graciously offer up a tiny section of wire, out of the goodness of their hearts. They care, you see. But they don't care. They really don't. They create laws to make sure the pockets are closed. The decry people with no wire. They hold up wire as the highest good. But they become hysterical if someone tries to take theirs.

Those people are animals, they think. Get your own wire! But they can't. Their pockets are sewn shut too. To be fair.
 
I beseech you: let the wire fall. The world will gain. You will gain. No-one will lose. The happiness of others is not something to fear. Don't sew up your pockets.

Gravity is not an assault on your freedom.

***

I can't tell you how impressed I am with myself! But I'll try!

I just wrote that first wire sentence with no idea what I was going to say. But, creative and clever as I am, I was able to turn it into something thought-provoking. What a guy (me)! Admittedly, the thought is "Uh, yeah, I sort-of get it. But it doesn't really hold up to much scrutiny, does it?".

Still a thought, though.

Still. A. Thought.

I win again. But I'll cut my trophy into pieces and stir it into the common pot. We will all die of lead poisoning.

It's fun to make up analogies. No-one can question them, because you can change what they represent if you feel like it. You are the god of your own metaphor. If it proves to be unsustainable, you can just throw it away like a rotten simile. No harm, no foul.

I'm a thinker.

I've always been blessed with a tremendous knack for using my brain to generate thoughts.