No?
--Why Always Me?
Mario Baloteli (by Stanley Chow)
Mario Baloteli (by Stanley Chow)
You could've turned the gun into steam,
the bullets into mercury,
the bottle into goddamned snowflakes
but you didn't, did you?
--The Watchmen (2009)
I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
I'd have said the right thing
But I must have used the wrong line
--Right Place, Wrong Time,
Dr. John
You can go with this
You can go with that
You can go with this
Or you can go with that
--Weapon of Choice,
Fatboy Slim
Why me!
--Nancy Kerrigan, upon getting kneecapped
before her 1994 Olympic performance
_________________
This is my take on the topic of the previous post, "It Didn't Have to Happen," which arrived fully-formed upon hearing that comment:
Why not you, Nancy?
The Canadian geese did not have to walk out into the traffic today
And my favorite Irish linen shirt did not have to go to holes in the wash
The lab results could have been better
And my job could strengthen, versus weakening, me
Someone could be brave enough to stock whole fat Greek yogurt instead of the feeble zero fat
approximation;
I mean, it's not like eating yogurt is making us fat
I did not have to wind up on the side of the road,
and I did not have to have my heart broken; no, I did not
The stocks could have gone up, and not down.
The temperatures did not have to go from 70's to 90's in a week,
but Nature, she's always been cruel
(some say "Indifferent, but I point out, she's a Mother.)
The Fujiyama nuclear plant did not have to be built so close to the water,
And we could have mediated rather than warred
The pipes did not have to break in the foundation,
in the cold of winter, and
I could have gotten a massage versus an upbraiding
The Holocaust did not have to happen
So basically it could have gone this way instead of that,
but you drink or snort a little too much,
or you just choose badly
or you did not get as many I.Q. points in life's Lotto
You get slammed up against each other and things happen,
Like when the fire ant, wasp and the mosquito bit me
Serendipity is when you like it;
Tears, hell or oblivion is when you don't
But it is all contingent, is it not?
Labels: contingencies, it didn't have to happen
posted by Lisa at 8:58 PM
6 Comments:
Hi Lisa,
"No?"
Well, maybe.
"or you did not get as many I.Q. points in life's Lotto"
God mixed up my IQ and shoe size, but I'm a healthy-enough clod, so I count my blessings. I feel like the Gary Larson cartoon where a simpleton in Hell is happily whistling while pushing around a wheelbarrow full of rocks and one devil says to another, "We're just not getting through to this guy!"
Dave
I love Gary Larson, and have so many favs.
I like the jar of potato salad in the fridge, wearing a mask and brandishing a gun, with the caption: "When potato salad goes bad"! That has layers of meaning (to me), and is timely for July 4th.
But maybe I'm carting that wheelbarrow around with you ;)
Actually, I think a lot is getting through to both of us, no?
9/6/3/0-1
Beyond Contemporary Scientific Paradigms
an essay on ‘End Time’
PoLT,
Yup, the veil must come down. Lotsa ways to say it -- just came across these lyrics from an old C/W song:
How can you offer vision, yet walk around blind
No you can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine
One thing I am reassured by is that the vast majority of us will meet with the final, bitter inevitability of cruel Fate with the most predictable of human reactions; pleading, begging, self-pity, incredulity, and outright undignified whining.
We won't go gentle into the Good Night. We will be dragged off whimpering "But it wasn't my faaaauuuult...!"
Chief,
That is it: It is undignified. As a friend suggested recently, "We (humans) do not how to deal with failure."
Hence denial, justification, blame and the whole sorry lot.
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