To the Extreme

At some point in the last several years, a good portion of American society has deemed that it is uncool to be “in the middle”. Or “normal”. As a self-proclaimed socialist, I don’t absolve myself of this phenomenon. However, I don’t want to get political in this blog. There are many flaws in our political system and people pushing themselves further right or left is only one of the issues. Besides, it’s not only our political views where I’ve noticed people take things to the extreme. 

For example, how many times have you heard someone express to you that this is the “worst day ever” (I can hear the Simpson’s comic book guy now). It would stand to reason that your worst day ever would be the day that you die – so the fact that you can stand in front of me and utter that phrase automatically disqualifies this particular day being your worst day. Unless you are uttering it from your death bed, of course.

But even taking that further, let’s say you were only trying to point out that it was the worst day you’ve had in your life up until that point. This is a much more probable possibility. The problem arises with when you ask someone “Why, what’s wrong?” Typically you’ll get a mumbled answer along the line of “Oh – someone is a jerk at work, I have a headache, someone cut in front of me in the line at Starbucks, I had to pay way too much for gas…”  Now while these are all unfortunate incidents and combined they would make for a highly unfortunate day, I’d say if that is your worst day ever, you probably lead a semi charmed life (cue Third Eye Blind).

The same can be applied to whenever we label something as the “Best ever”. The definition of “ever”, by the way, indicates any time – past, present OR future. Are we so confident as to label something as the best ever when we don’t have any comparison into the future? Anything short of Emmett Brown’s time machine from Back to the Future would prevent anyone from proving you wrong. But it would also take Rufus from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure to prove you right.

As time and life go by, the more we push ourselves to extremes, the further we get from understanding the true human condition. Most of us are simply trying to get along with our lives and do the best we can. Some days we do better than others. There is nothing wrong with expressing yourself in extremes, but at the same time a communication that gravitates to a more “middle” state would make it easier for people to understand you and for you to understand them.

So while I invite everyone to continue to express their individuality – perhaps this weekend instead of saying “WOW – this is the best movie ever!” or “This is the most wasted I’ve been ever!” we should try and communicate what we really mean. For example, “I really enjoyed that movie. The characters were great and I was entertained throughout. It’s possible it’s up there among my personal favorites. What did you think?” Or “I’m really drunk right now. And it’s totally possible that I love you, but it’s likely that’s just the alcohol talking. If you would like to dance that would be cool, but overall, I just want to know if you are enjoying your night. But if you can just hold on for a second, I need to vomit.”

Send any commentary to pimplaskin@gmail.com. Talk to you again in a few days!