unprompted/Notes/absurdity.md

---
title: Absurdity
layout: base.njk
permalink: /notes/absurdity/
---

## Rough Notes



## Quotes



## Questions
- What makes a good story?
    - the situation?
    - the narration?
    - what are the rules?!
    - Rules are about as compelling as a yield sign
        - It doesn't even have the gravity of a full-on stop
        - It's just a non-committal suggestion that you might have a better time if you don't do the thing right away
    - Rules pave over context. They omit the story by design.
        - Betty got hit by a semi on this corner. Her parents sued, so they installed some flashing lights, and added safety paint.
    - So seeking out rules feels like paving over the ground: it might make the drive easier, but it leaves less room for the plants to grow
- What does it mean to be tragically normal?
    - Can you still be considered normal? The tragic part seems to put you into into some kind of exceptional bucket.
    - It's like being painfully average. I feel like it's taken a sharp edge from dead-center.
    - But if there are so many categories of 'not-'average, then being dead center starts to feel more exclusive.
        - How many people do you know who grew up with 2.5 kids?
            - What did they do with the half?
            - Or, where did it come from?
    - So if being average is actually quite rare, then its more common to not be?
    - There's something frustrating about realizing that so much thought is repetition, imitation, and then realizing that includes this thought too.
    - What's more unoriginal? Repeating someone else's ideas in some form of imitation, or repeating how unoriginal your ideas are?

{% include "bell-curve.svg" %}

- I went to a lot of trouble for that bell-curve, I hope you appreciate it.



## Definitions
- Crofter (n), Scottish tenant farmer
- Coracle (n), small wooden boat.
- David Hume, Scottish Philosopher


## Synthesis