I tend to reduce things to what I like to think are pithy inversions. Here’s where an example would be ideal, but unfortunately I am at a temporary loss for examples. Better than being a temporary example for losses. Or maybe it’s the same thing, I don’t know.
So anyway, there’s a perfect example of my inclination for inversion, and on top of that my tendency to then equate (“maybe it’s the same thing”) the two opposites I’ve produced, essentially cancelling out everything I’ve just said. Very nihilistic. I’m a simple guy who likes to invert things in an attempt to come across as profound and nihilistic.
And that right there’s an example of my reductionist urges, my habit of denying all the issue’s layers, marginal factors, and subtle influences any validity. I’ve only just realized the nihilistic aspect.
What it boils down to is I usually just sound like an absurd wordsmith, which comes with a feeling of obsolescence.
Thing are no longer reducible to pithy inversions, or to single thoughts or ideas for that matter. For comedic or satiric purposes reduction may be an effective technique, but to consider what’s worth considering these days only within the framework of reductive inversion is too simplistic to render an adequate representation of postmodern reality, which is a pretentious way of attempting and failing to convey something I can’t quite pin down with words.
How about numbers. Numbers, strangely, capture the subtleties of human complexity in suspiciously reductionist-like ways. The percentage of the population that suffers from schizophrenia, depression, megalomania, heroin addiction, the percentage of the population that owns the most resources and the most money and the most houndstooth dinner jackets—these numbers evoke feelings. People feel for numbers. People trust numbers. I personally love statistics. Sports statistics in particular. You can really tell a lot about a person by their on-base percentage.
I am a reductio-inversionist and this is my story.
Thoughts come fast and indiscriminately, mostly drivel. I can’t be sure I haven’t heard any of it somewhere before, a few dim words of some conversation at another table in the restaurant overlooking the Elora Gorge, perhaps. I’ve heard lots of things in my time, and most of it—roughly 73%—is locked away with some key I’ll never lay eyes on in some closet I’ll never lay eyes on.
Memories which I no longer have continue to influence me in ways I’ll never understand. How’s that for fatuous reductionism? And of course: Memories which I no longer have continue to understand me in ways I’ll never influence.
I think I need some rehab.
