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Guest Lecturer
I was going to put up an article about memes here this evening, but I'm packing for America at the moment and have to go to work, so in its place I thought I'd share an essay that my brother Richard wrote and handed in as part of his English prelim. He seems to write in the complete opposite style to me - instead of being formal and writing in the most balanced and precise way possible, he just writes what he feels like. It's that looseness that allows such masterpieces as these to be produced.
The amount of "normality" with which a person should behave is debatable. It is my belief, however, that while people should act in a reasonably "normal" manner at work or in leisure, they should not cull all their eccentric habits or quirks.
Recently, I have become fond of a nonsense song concerning a bear ("all black and brown and covered with hair!"). Many may consider my habit of repeatedly murmuring a couple of lines of the song to myself to a made-up tune as I go about my daily life as "odd". However, I consider it a harmless and entertaining waste of breath. It is habits such as these which shouldn't be lost, although they should be limited in places of work.
On the other hand, certain funky behaviour should be avoided, during leisure and particularly during work. Bellowing the aforementioned "Bear song" at the top of your voice every time someone mentions the word "bear" or even "bare" is not acceptable. It is annoying and wakes up sleeping people.
Everybody should have a few unusual habits. While chewing pencils, fingernails, toenails, etc. is relatively commonplace, I knew a guy who used to try and eat biro pens. He would inevitably get sick as soon as he bit through the tube that contains the ink but it was always pretty funny.
If nobody had annoying or interesting habits, it would be a lot harder to decide who to hate. It's a pretty safe bet that a fellow who hums his own personal theme tune before entering a room or initiating a conversation is the kind of berk that you want to avoid. If he didn't maintain this curious habit, it would be easy to find yourself unwittingly engaged in a dialogue with him. You might have to suffer the fool's prattle for several minutes before an opportunity for escape presents itself.
In my experience, most people can do some pretty weird things like dislocating their kneecaps at will or turning their thumbs upside down. Many people call these feats abnormal but that is precisely what makes them unique and amusing. You might even be able to make some money if you have a particularly disgusting ability. If people were encouraged not to display these stunts countless hours of entertainment would be lost.
To conclude, I consider an acceptable level of "normality" as avoiding any unusual behaviour which causes physical pain or mental anguish to other people or small mammals. Harmless tricks and quirks should not be lost, although they should be limited in workplaces if they have the potential to cause a disturbance.
Self-evaluation: I would give this a grade, but I'm not sure how. I feel that in choosing question 12 I was in error. Nevertheless I attemped to wing it. I am dubious as to whether I succeeded or even answered the question.
And that was awarded a credit grade. Anyway, I'll be updating from America next time after travelling for about eighteen hours, so it might not be an entirely light and cheery entry.
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But then, the same can be said of a great many things.
I like it. if i knew what the question that he thought about answering was, then i might be even more impressed.
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But anyway ... that's an interesting essay.
And what sort of definition of "memes" would you be going with? The one which is a self-continuing idea, in the same way as a gene, or just the little tests that are on lj?
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Haha, that's so true.
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