Irony is the stage manager in most human drama. It is the genome of crossed purposes, misinterpretation, and expressions of things other than what we intended.
It's inherent condition is being opposite our expectations, a condition that is not always recognized at the outset. As it begins to make its presence known, irony strikes us with the lightning of understanding that we are in a rigged game in which we are handed the script of a Road Runner cartoon and told we have been cast as Wile E. Coyote. The awareness of irony then settles in to stay liked unwelcome relatives at a summer rental, increasing by Sisyphean leaps and bounds because we know Wile E. Coyote cannot win. He is as much a slave to his instincts as we are to the instincts of irony.
Had Sir Isaac Newton turned his light of inquiry to the subject of irony, he might have evolved laws of behavior governing it, behavior in which irony is bound to respond, indeed does respond.
It is, he well may have observed, possible to get things right, but there is no guarantee that anyone else will see the truth of things being gotten right.
It may also be possible to get things right but at the wrong time.
It is easier to be misunderstood than to be understood.
Being misunderstood, then attempting to be understood enhances by the square root factor the continuation of being misunderstood.
It is as possible to be misunderstood by saying nothing as it is to be misunderstood by saying something.
Getting things right but not being recognized for having done so is equal in magnitude and direction to someone having gotten things wrong but having nonetheless been recognized for having got them right.
Having ultimately been observed for having got things right after having been considered wrong is equal in intensity to having been considered wrong in the first place.
Things that are wrong tend to stay wrong, things that are manifestly right but considered wrong tend to experience a regressive wrongness, requiring more energy to convince anyone that they are right.
Persons with long histories of being right about things are more suspect than persons with long histories of being wrong. Persons who are habitually wrong are funny to observe. Persons who are habitually right are threatening as indeed are persons who tend to be right about things.
Persons who are wrong about things tend to attract more followers than persons who are right about things.
Even though we like to think of ourselves as being right, we are conscious enough of being wrong that being told we are right emerges as a threat.
If irony were a tangible commodity, a large segment of commodity traders would sell irony futures as growth potentials.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Funny You Should Ask
Labels:
irony,
Sir Isaac Newton,
Sisyphus
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2 comments:
With a long history of being right, you are most def suspect. Irony futures could save the stock market.
Right, wrong, it's all a matter of semantics that we place too much importance on. Ironically I always think myself to be wrong, and find myself coming out in the right. So I am quite suspicious when I begin to believe that I might actually be right. And I will take 200 shares please.
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