eh???

The other day I was speaking to this guy who said he read my blog n my emails "intermittently". This had me intrigued. There are hosts of people I meet who cheerfully confide that they never read my emails but instead just delete them. Such robust conviction is reassuring, a tethering sheet-anchor in a world of restless change.

There is a minuscule minority which confesses to reading me on a regular-ish basis, including one person who said he always read my stuff because he never understood a word of what I was saying. I thanked him sincerely and assured him that I shall spare no effort in future to perpetuate his state of blissful ignorance in this regard.
But, till the other day, I'd never come across anyone who said they read me intermittently. On and off. Like a light switch. But how should one decide when it was on and when off? Did one wake up one morning and make a resolution: From now on I shall read Andy's stuff only on the third Sunday of those months which don't have an "r" in them?
But any such arrangement, based on a pre-established pattern, could not properly be called intermittent, which means occurring irregularly, or at random.

How about tossing a coin? Heads, what the hell, I"ll read the bugger and be done with it. Tails, thank God, I"ll delete him out unread with the junk folder. Now thats a system that would provide one with a true intermittence of periodicity. Though the chances of a coin landing heads [or tails] on any particular toss are 50-50, heads [or tails] could in fact turn up 7, or 17, times in succession.

However, while there could be a run on heads [or tails] for a series of tosses, the laws of probability are such that over a period of time the aggregate frequency of heads and tails would even out, thereby establishing a predictable, non-random, un-intermittent pattern. Nope.

Tossing coins wouldnt work either. Besides, how would you decide whether heads meant you had to read the darn thing, or if it ought to be the other way round? How would you ensure that the heads-read/tails-don't read code didn't itself fall into a foreseeable, hence non-intermittent, formula?

Of course, one could rely on unpremeditated, spur of the moment decision. That surely would ensure authentic intermittency. But in that one would first have to decide to make that decision, could subsequent decisions to read/not read strictly be deemed to be totally unpremeditated?

Besides, was it desirable to add to the already heavy burden of decision-overload? We are forever being asked to decide: Mushrooms or olives for the extra topping? Vh1 or SS ? whatto eat for dinner.. Tandoori or Grilled chicken?Evolution or intelligent design?

Come on, hurry up, the next guy's waiting. Think you've got all day or what? Would anyone want to add to that,that dilemma of whether to read Andy or not to ? Poor Hamlet. We knew him well. Freedom of choice paralyses, and absolute freedom paralyses absolutely.

Think of Buridan's [ or wateva that fucker's name was] ass who, when placed equidistant from two equally appetising piles of hay, died of starvation because it could not decide which to eat first.

I read this story the other day in this manuscript by Colin Wilson, which tells a cautionary tale of a scientist who, in a quest for complete freedom, devised a serum which would forever liberate him from all mechanistic determinism[?!.. dont look at me lathat.. thats how it was written there] and allow him to decide on each and every action according to his own free will.
The serum worked only too well. It suppressed the autonomous working of his lungs, heart and other vital organs which he then had to order consciously to function. Somewhere between telling the pancreas to get on with it and chivvying the gall bladder, the world's first and last genuinely free spirit gave up the ghost.

so signing off while making no sense whatsoever...

over n out

The takeout? The contents of this space can be injurious to health. Particularly if taken in intermittent doses.