Funny how mindless (e.g. conformity) means you don't think, thoughtful (e.g. gift) means you care, careless (e.g. email attachment) means you need to resend, and resentful means you very much do mind.

Why there are no good pick-up lines

There are no good pick-up lines. There are just good people you got to know suddenly. You only call them "pick-up" lines when they don't. Just like you only call it advertising when it's poorly targeted. When 100% targeted you call it stuff I need.

When you call it anger it's useless and needs to stop. Otherwise it's called an emergency, or an emergent cause célèbre.

You don't call whining and complaining what you know how to satisfy with worthy effort.

You call it planning when you don't know what to do.

You only call it stress when you're disappointed in yourself.

"Confusion is the beginning of all things but not their end." —Gibran

You put on a to-do list what you want permission to put off.

You call it work after obligation has outpaced opportunity. While conniving and obsessing and goofing off, you leave it for other people to make up words for whatever the heck it is they think you're doing.

You only name a struggle what you're preparing excuses to lose.

You don't call alive what's finished. Life is a mess. You only call gross what is or once was living. (So you should only clean up your space on those days in which you're absolutely sure you're alive. Thus closes the loophole for slobs.)

Intimacy is a memory, or an observation, or a wish, for a wordless, timeless non-place. A faraway dream of nearness.

There's only sorrow and regret for what's almost hopeless. The NTSB never cites gravity.

You call future what you hope holds your finest now. You call past what you hope doesn't.

Fast,True, Easy — Pick Two

All questions include an implicit contract. If the contract were explicit, the questioner would choose what kind of answer they wanted:

1. brief
2. complete
3. comprehensible

Pick two.

For example the question "How are you?" may be answered:

• brief, comprehensible: "Fine."
• brief, complete: (some obscure, technical, psychological term that may not have been invented yet)
• complete, comprehensible: (what happened so far today, and the day before, a dozen or so of your recent thoughts, your life history, your most annoying habits, your best powers concealed as charming traits, your heart rate, blood sugar and bank balances)

Define yourself by what you choose. You'll be defined by what you forgo.