If I let divining cards make decisions for me, say, answering a question such as: should I engage you? And say the answer is a resounding yes and I get excited because the universe has told me something… If this happens and I make a decision informed by “cards meant for entertainment” it does not mean that I have made a bad first decision to trust in hokum and superstition. It means that the decisions I am making are of absolutely no significance to the universe.
So little of what I am doing is of any consequence and yet everything happens to me with such perceived effect. For example, I ride my bike to work most days and I happen to live on a street that is a sharrow (a bike+car shared lane) so I take it straight up 2 miles to the office. There is a way in which I can long-circuit to a dedicated bike lane but I don’t bother. Anyway, the thought that has lately permeated my ride is that the word sharrow is unbelievably dissatisfying. This thought takes over my mood and then I start a laundry list of other unsatisfying portmanteaus, but nothing is as irksome as sharrow. I cannot let this word ruin my day. I move on to other ruminations. Spork, pluot, jorts, keytar.
I have a soft spot for you. It is of no consequence but everything it touches feels it so profoundly. And you know what it is? You know what it all means? Every word is a portmanteau. Fewer are the words that are not. And alloys are stronger than raw material but my nirvana will be a supreme idiom, wordless expression, the summit of notion turned sensation turned sound, invisible exceptionalism, apolitical unsentimental love, hapax legomenon, the moment before a decision when all of the beta waves surrender to chaos, the softest part of me.