The reason for this address is due to a certain perplexing circumstance which I’ve been contemplating in recent time. You see, I’m skinny. I have legs that, without the hair, make most girls jealous by their sheer slenderness. My figure is slim. Give me a set of bøøbš, and I’d pretty much be your perfect figure of a woman (given I’m wearing a skirt to address the other issue). In truth, we are one and the same. Only, we come from different sides of the pasture.

You may be confused. Wondering how it is that I’ve come to the conclusion that we are the same. You being large, fat, overweight, too much; and me, being slender, beautiful, skinny, agile, nimble, able to slip through small cracks, crevices, et cetra. You may have the opinion that we are nothing alike, and the idea of our stereotypes being friends blasphemy (minus the religious connotations).

First, let me clarify your situation. Being overweight is no fun at all. Perhaps a few staunch supporters will declare themselves in love with their physicalness. I would argue those supporters are simply deceiving themselves in order to support a system of survival, one that allows their physical state to be justified, and normal. But life is not lived to its fullest when you are overweight. You are burdened by the sheer volume of mass. This taxes your bodily functions. The veins are restricted; the heart is forced to work harder to maintain a less than optimal blood flow. The lungs struggle to grasp enough oxygen to keep the brain at top performance. And simple tasks such as brushing your teeth, combing your hair, or eating cause a slight shimmer of sweat to break out on your forehead. In short, the physical ailment of obesity robs you of partaking of the greater joys in life.

It is a natural tendency for many in this situation to harbor malice and hatred toward those whose situation contrasts their own. That would be where I come in. I’m the skinny guy.

Let me open your eyes, this is really where the problem resides. Your perception of the world has been structured, and certain truths have been omitted for a purpose.

The following deceptions have been propagated by our society, the media, and kids at school.

First, skinniness is beauty. While it may be true that beautiful people tend to be skinny, the majority of skinny people were born ugly, and have been that way all their lives. Unfortunately there is no real hope for these people. There is no procedure to fix their ugliness. Plastic surgery can only go so far to disguise ugly. Their only true hope is one of sacrifice; they must find a mate who is more beautiful than they and they must produce offspring. The hope being that their offspring will somehow manage to favor the more beautiful of its parents.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t believe there is any documented proof of a skinny person ever becoming beautiful by becoming overweight. However, there are multiple instances of overweight people losing that weight, becoming skinny/slender/slim, and they are beautiful people. (Disclaimer: this is not to suggest fat = ugly but it does distort the image a little.) Given this perspective, its easy to see, the fat people have +1 points over skinny people.

The second deception, skinniness equals blissfulness. The ailments of a skinny person are often more difficult to detect than those of an overweight or obese person. Just because they are less visible does not make them any less painful. You see a world where it’s hard not to eat. I see a world where it’s hard to get myself to eat. First I have to decide what I want, almost impossible. Then I have to either make it (not likely) or drive somewhere to buy it (costly and time consuming). Usually I falter to the latter of the two, but I tend to fall into ruts where I eat the same thing over and over again. Because if I’ve invested all that time and money in driving somewhere to buy something, I don’t want to ruin it all by exploring new foods and getting something gross. This can, in extreme cases, cause ones perspective of life to turn somewhat drab. Void of joyful tastes and flavors. A constant barrage of the same tastes to the taste buds will cause them to dull and lose life.

I’m tired of numbering the deceptions, lets move on.

Ailments, what ails you? As an overweight person I’m sure there are many things you could list when given this question. And you may struggle when asked to provide a speculative list of the ailments a skinny person may have.

It may be a shocker, but despite our differences, a lot of the ailments are quite the same (within reason).

I don’t play sports, in large part because I dislike them. But I think that dislike has slowly grown over time in large part due to my inability to perform at the level “normal” people do. I find that physical contact is often quite painful, and I suspect more painful than most people realize. The reason for this is the lack of padding and fat. Which means I’ve got bones out there to absorb the impact of falling down, hitting other players (tackling includes both these aspects) and other various forms of sport play. Because of this increased pain factor, sports lose a lot of “fun points” almost immediately.

Then you need to take into consideration that my hands and wrists always hurt. So catching a ball thrown from across the field hurts. I know, kids, youth, men and women around the world frequently find glee in catching a football, basketball, or other forms of sports paraphernalia when thrown by a friend or peer. But for me, time slows and I make several calculations. First, do I have to catch it? Yes, because if I don’t I look like a sissy. Second, what kind of agility will catching this flying object require? And will it cause me to fall or hit some inanimate object? Thirdly, I begin calculating the amount of pain I suspect I may experience upon catching the ball. A large part of this is speculation as to whether I’ll catch it with my face (painful), my chest (not as painful) or my hands (stinging painful). Oh, and then I wonder if this interaction between the ball and myself is going to cause one of my very sharp elbows to solidly dent one of my equally solid hip bones. You may be surprised at how painful that in of itself can be.

Oh right, then there is the jogging, running, or anything-other-than walking. My ankles hurt. They hurt enough that I’ve developed a limp. Why? I am not sure, perhaps a lack of nutrition, or perhaps the office chair I use cuts off the blood circulation to my legs. This seems to also be affecting my knee; I don’t like this because it hurts too.

Are you noticing anything here? Perhaps a slight bond has formed between you and me? Seriously, how can we not? I mean, look at yourself. Statistically speaking, your knees probably hurt. You probably experience shin splints when you run. You probably feel like çráp a lot. And while I realize we are far different in the pains we experience or at least the things that cause our pain – we are so much alike, I wonder if perhaps we come from the same genetically defunct strain of DNA.

If what I’ve said today offends you or makes you angry. Just close your eyes (after finishing reading this of course). Take ten slow and deep breaths (while counting them if it helps). And think about how much you love me. Now wrap your arms around yourself, and hug tightly, smile, and bam – no more hateness.

I’m glad we could have this talk. I feel much better now.

Title image used with permission (permission pending) and courtesy of mrs-allonby, check out the original here.

The other night I was at a friend’s house (Mat Black). There were several of us socializing. This friend of mine has a small dog as a house pet. My friend also has a roommate who also has a dog, only this one is large.

The large dog is overly friendly and very eager to violate any type of personal bubble he can find. I had mine with me on this evening, and he was prompt to be all up in it (so to speak).

I pushed him away while craning my neck back and away; my way of avoiding a sloppy kiss. The dog then would proceed to the next person, and the next. But he seemed to gravitate toward me. I assume this is because I put the most effort into deflecting him; he took this as a game.

This was somewhat of a show for everyone. Rachel asked me why I behaved the way I did. And I said “because I don’t like animals.” To which Rachel emitted a burst of gah in the form of the sentence that reads something like “WHAT!?”

I quickly attempted to clarify my statement. My statement was a quick snippet of my real feelings toward animals. But I didn’t feel it necessary to elaborate more than to say I didn’t like them. My choice of words may have been poor. Because it’s not that I don’t “like” animals. I like them just fine. I just don’t like house pets. The reason for this is simple logic. Animals are animals, not people. And people belong in houses. Animals don’t belong in houses, because they are not people. And houses are for people, not animals.

That’s pretty much the gist of it. But this brings me to a deeper look into my past. Because I’ve always found it weird that people think it’s weird that I don’t like animals. But just now, tonight, I discovered why this is.

I grew up on somewhat of a farm. In my opinion it was not a farm. But most city dwellers would call it a farm. We had two barns. A large front pasture and a large back pasture. 4-8 horses at any given time. And over the history of my tenure at this house we had quite an array of animals. They include Chickens (60-80), Geese (5), a goat (1), cats (29,872,917), dogs (16), cows (6), etc (in case I forgot something).

Now, we didn’t have all of them at once. For example, the dogs, we probably max out at 4 or 5. But dogs don’t seem to live very long in our neighborhood (for varying reasons). And cats, well there’s always tons of those. I suspect there is some sort of unspoken rivalry between cats and rabbits; to see who can reproduce the most the fastest. Rabbits have the advantage in the hindquarters; they are naturally built for the activities required in reproducing. But cats are naturally seductive, so it’s hard for them to congregate without some sort of reproducing going on.

You may ask how this has anything to do with my friend’s roommate’s dog. Here it is. All those animals I listed above were at some point depending on me for the day to day living. I was on rotation to take care of them. And it was a chore. And I don’t like chores. And I didn’t like taking care of them. But I did this for a good portion of my youth.

To me, animals are animals. That’s it, just animals. But to most my friends; and definitely Rachel (the previously mentioned burster) animals are friendships, and connections.

When they see their pet, they have all this feeling jumbled up inside, confusing everything. When I see their pets, I see a dinner that’s still in the making (granted I don’t eat dog meat, but let’s just say it would be a survival situation).

Title image used with permission (permission pending) and courtesy of Wirestyle, check out the original here.

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Sorry if it feels like I’ve been distant. I still love you. I only recently have come to realize that I do not receive notification when users comment on my writings. This is disheartening to me because I would prefer to keep active in the discussions that evolve from anything I’ve written.

I’ll be looking into solving this issue, but just know, I don’t hate any of you (that I can think of right now, and I’m thinking really hard) so if you’ve commented in the past, and felt that I’ve ignored you; please understand that…

1. Yes I was ignoring you, but not by my own choice. And,
2. I forgot the second part of this.

Yes, my frequency of posting has dwindled as of late. Life is busy. I’ll refrain from excuses.

*Update: Okay, its not fair to leave you in the dark. Over the last several months I’ve been getting more and more involved in film production. I have not axed Ponderplace.com, but it has been on the bad end of the ignore stick.

There are other things that are happening which detract from my being able to consistently write on ponderplace.com, but the general message is that it may be slow around here, but not dead. So keep on keepin on (as my buddy Joe Dirt would say) and keep ponderplace.com on your “to read” list. :)

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Many back in the day did believe the world was flat. This was the case for a number of reasons.

• Everyone else believed it – there is comfort in believing what everyone else does. Failure as a group is always much easier than failure as an individual, just ask these guys.
• There was nothing to prove to them otherwise – Given there were no telescopes, planes, satellites (with camera’s), or other means of viewing the earth from a great distance, those in the past had to rely on their eyes for all visible validation purposes.

There was a small group of people who didn’t believe the world was flat (okay maybe at first, but they were the first to suspect the theory was bunk), they would be sailors. Need I explain why?

Maybe its another one of those comfort things we humans like to protect ourselves with; but we often tell ourselves that we are living at the peak human evolution. This may be true in some aspects, for example I don’t think any civilization before us ever had fiber optic cabling, or the interwebs. On the other hand, we are quite a devolved civilization in other aspects, take the Greeks for example (not current day, but you know, back when they were at their peak). It has been said of the Greeks that they have already said everything there is to say, but they said it better (I think that comment is referencing philosophy, theory, etc).

We live our lives in theories. We don’t see them as theories because as far as we are concerned they are facts and truths. Yet every once in a while something comes along that provides irrefutably evidence that one or more of our societies “truths” is completely wrong.

Living based off these theories is not a bad thing at all. Its doing the best you can with what you know. The caveat is when we get so wrapped up we think we’ve reached the peak of existence. We need to realize we are really only living at a fraction of our potential.

Hey there, just a little FYI: Unless you know me in real life, this video is pretty boring from about 1:05 until 5:45, but before and after that it is pretty funny.

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Mat Says:

Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

To find an answer to the question we will break each word down to its basic components.

Overlook
Over-look
Ove-r-look
Ove-r-Loo-k

Words generally tend to have a root, sometimes Greek, sometimes Latin. I don’t know where Ove came from, but wikipedia says “a gullible teenager who is Boyzvoice’s biggest fan.”

…okay, not sure where that points is, but we’ll go with that.

I don’t even need to research “R”. That’s a word we have all heard many times before, “Get r done.” “r” obviously stands for the subject, which will change from application to application depending on what it is you are overlooking.

“Loo” is a water closet. Or in other words, a bathroom (for the English).

“K” is a hard one to pin down. We have seen it used in the phrase “Hmmmmk”, which is to confirm. But that can also be used in question form.

Beyond that, we have “ok” and the more eloquent phrase “okay”. Its safe to assume that the “K” in this word is a confirmation.

In summary we have a fan (the person not the device), of whatever is being overlooked, in the bathroom, confirmed.

Overlook = A rabid fan being “subject” in the bathroom is confirmed.

Now that we have Overlook dissected, let’s look at Oversee.

Oversee
Over-see
Ov-er-see
Ov-er-s-ee

“Ov” is a “Common notation for an overhead bird sighting.”

“Er” is a sign of confusion or hesitation. For example “Er, dude, what did you just do?” Or the elongated, which is used when conveying an increased amount of confusion “Eeeeeer, dude, did you just push that stroller down the hill?”

“S” is elusive. It could be used as a warning noise made by pushing the tongue up against the front teeth. But if that were truly the meaning, I’d expect a few more “S”’s (such as “Ssss”, for example). My conclusion is that “S” represents the noise made when attempting discreetly bring someone’s attention to yourself.

“Ee” is an indication of fear. When a person is startled and scared of something they see, they will respond by emitting a sharp “Ee!” noise. Probably better conveyed through “Eeee!”, sometimes it takes the form of “Eeeek!”.

In summary, we have a bird sighted above, someone confused by the bird, someone discreetly trying to un-confuse the person confused, and another person scared of what might happen if that person is successful in explaining the confusion.

Thus we see that the reason both things mean entirely different things is because they both come from different word families that accumulate to completely different meanings. Despite the similarity in spelling, and the coincidental similarity of the second part of each word (“look” and “see”).

Cassie wrote:
Who’s in the Burger King suit? And why doesn’t he ever speak?

I can only assume you are talking about the soul of the Burger King. The real suit is that Jack in the Box guy. Literally, the guy is motivated by business and business alone. Don’t let all that talk about the chabada bread fool you.

Similarities between BK and JB include excellent poker face, and never-ending happiness. The Burger King guy does seem to show up in more unusual and sometimes awkward places.

It’s my guess that the Burger King, despite the name, is actually the inferior fast food overlord. He is the heroin peasant in the kingdom of Jack in the Box. Because of this, he keeps a low profile, being a mute allows more anonymity.

Rachelle wrote:

So, the scientists that are in the midst of studying quantum physics have found an interesting phenomena. That is; in an effort to get to Point B from Point A, it really doesn’t matter which of your hundreds of options you choose to get to Point B.

It is the INTENTION of getting to Point B that actually gets you there. It will set in motion a series of events that will get you to where you are intending… and often those events are not what you planned…but they get you there anyway.

Why is that?

Hold one; I’m going to quickly review my Quantum Physics 101 manual.

Alright so apparently this can be viewed as a metaphor.

Imagine that life is a voyage across the ocean. You are the caption or captioness of your ship. Or you could be the ship, its really up to your personal preference.

Anyway let’s just say that you’re a caption, it’ll fit the metaphor a little more smoothly.

You’re in your captain chamber, making important decisions. You have a map spread before you, and there are a number of points-of-interest marked.

The point of interest can loosely be translated as your intended goal or object.

A map is an overview of the terrain. It has markings for distance, significant obstacles (mountains for example), and other items. The point is, a map is just a loose translation of what can be expected in any given area.

Such are our plans and goals. We can get as specific as we want. The challenge is that we plan for what we know, but we can never really know all the dynamics of the things we set out to accomplish. Not too far down the road, you’ll find your plan is in shambles, everything has changed. You have to improvise. Adjust your plan as you encounter each new element and diversion.

Its the choice of staying focused on your goal. If you keep that focus, each change that you make will bring you one little bit closer to your final goal. At some point, you’ll be there.

Hurray (thanks quantum physics!).

Title image used with permission (permission pending) and courtesy of $zilla774, check out the unaltered original here.