Today’s post is going to require patience and alcohol. Be prepared. You need to view the whole thing the same way you need to relax your brain if you want to make those Magic Eye 3D things work (remember those?!). I swear, having written this paragraph first and being completely unable to make promises, the whole thing is best viewed from afar. Afar, afar, avast! I say!

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  See, that’s the general tact I take towards the writing process: hidden, or buried and therefore requiring some work, in the midst of a dozen other tangled sentences is one notion, one thing that is working hard to reward the viewer from having hacked away at the jungle of declamations.

Scope and format dictate the larger form. But the process is all the same, and easy to follow. Observen vous:

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I’ve been thinking the last several days about this format, how so many things seem to go the same way. So today I came up with what I’ll refer to as “Diggy’s ‘Life as Comic Books’ Theorem to Describe the Movement of Climax Towards the Middle and Away from the End“.And yes, I know I’m supposed to be moving on from the subject of Time Distortion. Unrelatedly, I can’t help but think that G.E.B. would’ve been better if it had been written 30 years from now when Hofstadter could have peppered his chapters and dialogues with sonic and not just visual stimulation. Please listen to the following on repeat before trudging through the rest of this column, you may or mayn’t have a better experience.

The best bit is from 2:18-2:33:

Poorly told stories always have the good bit for only about 8 seconds in the middle. What do I mean by that incredibly bold statement? Simply put, there’s no punchlines in life and stories don’t end when they’re supposed to. You have a really funny or heart-rending experience and the world doesn’t fade to black…everyone laughs or cries and then you still have to go eat, and take a shit and pay bills because it just keeps going.

 So the best bit ends up in the middle. The organic nature of debate and storytelling and human interaction necessitates that we lumber/roll forwards and leave the little pearls of wisdom untouched and entrenched in a world of minutiae. Pearls being the apt metaphor: sparkling, beautiful, rare and constantly irritating to the host (of course the irritation ends with It’s dislodging which can only be achieved by the violent death of the Keeper, but man oh man, is that another post entirely).

;Really the only medium that can touch this is the serialized Comic Book. I know it’s nerdy to talk about comic books, and that they only appeal to a limited literary population, but name me any other form of “art” or “story telling” that has gone on for generations and generations the way a Batman or Avengers can. Not since the end of the Oral Tradition have the Audience, the Storyteller and the implicit awareness of change over time been encompassed so completely. Comics understand that they’re not the end all and be all of any myth, or any larger structure. They exist, easy and consumable within the vast expanse of stories, devoured unknowingly by the populace and shunned by the Intellectuals.

And that’s what we People do with the little stories of our day to day; they may or may not illuminate a larger truth; they may (capital letters) Speak To The Human Condition, but they are better left as silly little parables you break out to fill time and punctuate the churning hours. The description of how hard your work environment is is always done in the middle, before concluding that it’s really starting to bring you down. Your impression of your boyfriend, and his callous, nasally-voice is right there in the middle, where it can be most easily digested and forgotten, even though your hatred of him is the most important part. We do this all the time.

Look, I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel. I know that my version of reality is disparate from everyone else’s. All I’m trying to say is…comic books. Wait. No, feelings…

…what were we talking about?

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It goes like this:

• 1) The first thing to do is earn the listener’s ease and trust. I know it’s easier said than done, but when it becomes easier to do than to realize you’re doing, you can pat yourself on the back and call yourself a Quite Charming Man, which is always nice. That or alcohol. Ya know what? Just use alcohol, being charming is tricky.
• 2) Next, assault them with unprovable and therefore irrefutable stimuli. Assure them that everything you’re saying is true, or conversely that you’re only going based on your own experience, so it’s probably entirely wrong, but that it’s proven true for yourself, and that they should not trust it. Both work exactly the same.
• 3) Speed up while they’re still thinking about the prior things. Go faster and faster.
• 4) Slow down just enough to Prove Your Point. Make it in the middle. Get thoughtful and serious for this bit. Look off into the distance. This is where the punchlines goes, and the tears. Whatever touches the human soul
• 5) Speed back up. Assure everyone that everything you said must be wrong or incorrect, that it’s all based on faulty information that will surely be disproven in a moment.
• 6) Give examples of how what you said was wrong or unimportant. Go fast
• 7) Ask your audience what it was your were talking about in the first place. Laugh at your lack of insight. Carefully listen to them and allow them to tangent.

And that’s how you persuasively navigate the human consciousness and write essays in the 21st century. Congratulate yourself later for virally implanting a thought that someone will claim as rote knowledge for the rest of eternity.

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Today I learned about the great  Latke v. Hamantash Debate. That shit’s awesome.

    -diggy