The ambrosial flavors of a blackcurrant tahitian vanilla tea sparkle momentarily on the periphery of my tongue, before blazing a scintillating and deeply satisfying trail through my throat.
Drinking tea is deeply relaxing and fulfilling: it is a tangible delight of life.
Tea and Me, we are Three.
13 comments:
I never knew one could be quite so descriptive about drinking tea, nor that it could be expressed in such high diction. Your writing style astounds me. And oddly enough, makes me want to drink tea.
Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out how John + Tea = 3, unless it was just because it's hard to bend tea to rhyme with two.
John + tea may equal three because I'm going to have some myself as your comments have aroused my hankering for a cup or two but with me joining Kristin, John plus tea may now=3+3T's
make it four. I'm having a cup of raspberry zinger asap.
I second Kristin's comments, but that doesn't make three of us. John, you're quite a masterful writer. My suggested revisions refer purely to the logic of sentence structure.
1) Tea goes DOWN one's throat, not through it, last time I checked.
2) You should say, "tea, me, and we are three". You would be punning on "we" since it would be a member of list of three--tea, me, and we--but also the union of tea+me.
These are creative solutions to an illogical sentence which projects like a sore thumb.
Now my commentary:
There was once a little man who lived in a box called rational manor. He delighted in describing everything within his box in terms of logic and mathmatical relationships. For instance, he once told his little wife that her dress was beautiful because at a constant mass, it's surface was inversely proportional to the density of the fabric, which he was able to calculate in integer values. One day, as he was discussing the possible implications of the pythagorean theorem with his prodigously talented young son, he tripped over his statue of socrates and fell through Bohr's window. He landed outside his home (the box) in a field of flowers.
He was so startled that for the first time in his life he didn't try to analyze the flowers outside his home in terms of logic and mathematics. But he noticed something new.......
The flowers smelled just fine.
amen
Perhaps my disclaimer wasn't clear enough, but I don't think I can make it any better.
Here it is:
"my suggestions refer purely to the logic of sentence structure".
Your story telling, but as it applies to my suggestions, it's batting the air.
You need both logic and creativity to make beauty, and I was merely pointing to the logic, freely admiting the intrinsic creative worth of your words (the flowers smell fine)
Having said this, it's only fair to give your preposterously inhuman, straw logician a chance to reply as a living, breathing creature.
1) Creativity is best employed within restrictions, so even if logic is rescrictive, (it's not) you should stick with it enough to communicate clearly
2) Math, science, and logic are capable of producing great beauty, because beauty depends on some form of order. Consider the mathamatical patterns in pine cones, the beauty of Bach, or the golden ratio.
3) Obfuscation is not mystery. Liscence is not freedom. A funny story doesn't make something true.
4) Since when has logic been a box? It's the vehicle to go where imagination commands. Einstien made this point more than once.
It is good on occasion to analyze, to look for the essence,to dissect, to search for the irreducible minimum, But sometimes a rose is best experienced through the rhinencephalon and occipital lobes without calling the pre-frontal cortex into play.
Barry,
Outsmarted, out-worded, and outmaneuvered, I sue for peace.
Perhaps you will better appreciate the illogical behavior of the last sentence after understanding that I wrote this blog after a long day of crunching numbers in Gchem.
Dad,
Your assertion is correct, but it cannot obscure the fact that God used logical exactitude to create the beauty we appreciate. Creation and experience should be understood differently
John,
Forgive me. Your post deserves hearty praise, not querulous nit-picking. Our creative side often peaks when reasoning powers are exhausted. However, the more rigourously you train your logical mind, the better you will intuitivly grasp the structure and cadence of a beautifully worded sentence.
Both learning a new language (words and logic are inseparable) and your study of General Chemistry have greatly improved your creativity. Keep up the good work!
I still think John was right. Logic may be able to explain almost everything, but its seldom the quickest route to truth. In fact, logic is usually a post hoc rationalization for intuitive choices.
Intuition allows us to create beauty without thinking in logical terms, but this doesn't mean it's illogical. In fact, good intuition follows logic without bothering to think about it.
The funny story is true. Its humor comes from its truth. Its not illogical for flowers to smell "fine". The nose sometimes knows faster than the mind.
Paul,
You havn't mentioned any of my arguments except "a funny story doesn't make something true". Instead, you have cleverly restated my original assertion: both logic and intuition (creativity) are required to create beauty. An honest reading of my comments will bear me out.
I only meant my original post to be a minor commentary on the logical part of John's creation, which I considered to be quite meritorious overall.
You shouldn't have picked my assertion about funny stories out of the air. Notice that I was refering to the logic of "tea and me, we are three". Notice how this is abundantly clear given the restatment of my disclaimer and the clear heading over my 4 points. I was merely saying that John's funny story didn't make this sentence true.
Again, as I stated, John's story is telling. I was merely pointing out that it didn't apply to my assertions. It's about time we learned to recognize the difference between an unbalanced attack, and a sensitive appraisal.
I never claimed my point would make or break the beauty of John's post. I was merely commenting on "the logic of sentence structure". To infer from this statement that I felt everything hinged on logic alone is patently rediculous and entirely unfair, especially given my frequent and explicit disclaimers.
Post a Comment