What is your favourite simpsons character?

[Subtract Eight!]

My favourite is the simpsons character that's kinda funny but just barely crosses the funny threshold because it's the simpsons and then you realize that the entire show is like that, but then once again something clever in a way you never thought before jumps out at you and you realize you like the simpsons for good reasons again.

You know that feeling, come to think of it I get it a lot, with Seinfeld too, but after a while i accepted the mundane dry jewishish humor, the driest in a bad way schaudenfraude sorta way the script wobbles through the actors, and on that level, doesn't that sorta seep into real life too?

Like that persistent realization that the cashier at seven eleven has transacted cash and rote pleasantries exponentially times mundaner than even you have yourself, how that meaningless moment echoes not only through our public comings and goings but into our families themselves, what does it mean?

When we run through the gamut of agony and sorrow, pity and rebirth, glorious flight only to come again to the point we are always at it seems, where where are gazing at our own meandering questions wondering if the questions themselves are good enough to get the right answers, and throughout all this I find myself typing this, like it was a last line of communicating that might actually have real implications on the future, like I stand nothing to gain from my own thoughts, or can I value myself and my own creations of my imagination as real things? Can you? It seems like everyone does in some way.

Though it's obvious that we create our own value somehow we don't recognize it all the time in others?

There is a gap, that is, hell is other people.

[Triple Zero]

So did you want to know my favourite Simpsons character, or was that just the start of a random bit of rambling?

But hey what's this mean?

the cashier at seven eleven has transacted cash and rote pleasantries exponentially times mundaner than even you have yourself

How can a meaningless mundane pleasantry be exponentially mundaner than mundane?

It's like saying something is exponentially colder than something else. Can't. You just got absolute zero, meaningless, so mundane that it's forgotten out of sight out of mind and it can't get more baseline unremarkable than that.

And that's nothing special.

Especially not in America where strangers greet as they pass one another with "hi how are ya" just fast enough so the other can reply "I'm fine how are you" before they separate again, forever.

It's a push-button-click-whirr automated mechanical dance that's completely devoid of meaning. Notice how there's two questions in those lines, but only one of them is answered: this is to prevent the sequence from going into an infinite loop.

As a cultural outsider, the only way to deal with this is to presume it's just sounds people make at eachother, plastic shrink-wrapped package of words that's simply a greeting on its own and nothing more. Like other cultures use wishes, "good day", "fare well", "take care", "have a great evening", "see ya" or exclamations as "hello" or "hi". And even their own shrink-wrapped packages such as grüß Gott or one of my favourites Servus! (Austrian, meaning "at your service!", but it's used in the most mutually friendly way you can imagine).

But the exchange "hi how are ya" / "i'm fine how are you" doesn't really mean anything, cause the second question is never answered, and nobody really cares about the answer. But it's not quite shrink-wrapped, cause you can make any grammatical variation that means the same "hey how are you doing?" etc.

It's so weird! It's like a conversation is going on, but it's not. Like an ATM saying "Welcome!" and "Thank you for the transaction!" which is fine cause it's a machine, and that's pretty much the limits of its capability for sincerity.

The other side is when you use the same words but you're actually meeting someone. You say "hey man how you been?" and you reply "doin okay, you?", it's the same dance, but you usually get a final reply back "yeah I'm good" and the reason you don't get into specifics is because you don't really want to bring everybody down if things haven't been very okay lately and you're just making polite conversation, but that's different, you're actually having a conversation, and it's more like a sort of mutual probe if either party actually has something more interesting to contribute, and if not you gave them the opportunity. I can get that, it's all between the lines, but it's there.

But as a greeting, another strange thing is, it's a one-two ritual. You can say Servus, grüß Gott in any order (as long as you don't mix up typical arrival or departure greetings), but even though the exchange is rendered meaningless, you can't start with "I'm fine how are you", nor can you really answer "hi how are ya" with "hi how are ya".

I can go on. And it's not like my own language is free from similar idiosyncrasies btw It's just that this one, the meaningless question / answer-question dance between strangers is quite unique, as far as I'm aware.





Oh yeah and back to the exponential mundanity, all you can say is that perhaps the cashier has gone through these moments many many more times than you have. Except of course not exponentially so, because he's just one human with a finite expected lifespan bound to a slightly lopsided normal distribution just like everybody else.

[Triple Zero]

Oh and I forgot to post this:

Hello hello hello hello hello hello how are you?
Hello hello hello hello hello hello how are you?
Thank you thank you I am fine
And I hope that you are too

Hello hello hello hello hello hello how are you?
Hello hello hello hello hello hello how are you?
Thank you thank you I am fine
And I hope that you are too

[Jenne]

Trip, interesting commentary on our little verbal ritual we have going.  There's actually a lot of meta-thinking on this that I've encountered in my own culture--the fact that no one's really asking your state of affairs, it's just a question that's used as a deeper form of simple Hello/Hello.  It sometimes can signify that you know the person slightly better than you would a stranger, but not much more than that or are not taking the time at the moment to inquire further as to the true nature of what's going on in their lives at that moment.

I've seen a similar greeting pattern with my husband's culture, by the way, which has a lot more of this ritualisting greeting that delves into "hi, how are you," etc.  They ask--and the reason I know this is not just cold translation but also because those speaking to me in English from his family expect to do this in English with ME as well--"Hi this is [NAME]/how are you/how's your family/how's your wife/how are your kids/everyone doing well?"

This is all said in rapid-fire fashion, by the way, and you don't really wait for the answers as you ask.  It just goes off like a long salvo, rattatattatt.  And both interlocutors speak simultaneously.  WHICH, by the WAY, is a severe pain in MY ass as I'm CONDITIONED to hear a person's response, even if I can surmise ahead of time what it will be.

Now, as to the answering the "how are you?" question to those who ask...I sometimes don't answer "fine" but instead "could be better, could be worse" or "ok..." so that folks know I'm answering with the intent of giving them a view not everything is coming up roses for me.  That does occaisionally lead to people asking me further details.  But not always.  Depends on the situation, really.

[Triple Zero]

I just remembered I wrote that--I was really tired then, so if I sounded a bit testy, my apologies.

Thanks for your reply. I'm kinda curious how that looks, the greeting in your husband's culture. Especially if they also do it in English, talking at the same time like that Maybe it's on Youtube somewhere...

I see I forgot to mention that one of the "hi how are you" / "i'm fine how are you" happened as we were sitting on a bench and he passed us on the bike The reason why he might have felt to treat us as slightly more than just a stranger was probably because it was a bike trail and we were biking too and had our bikes parked next to the bench. Probably helped that it was a beautiful day, too

[Jenne]

Ritualistic language is just that--the meaning behind the ritual actually supplants in a large way the meaning behind the words used in the ritual.