Thursday 13 August 2009

Drop 22

A-ha! I knew it. Here.

I’m selling off my gym membership at a discount. And finally getting the cloth-drying line replaced with my skipping rope.

The linked article is quite verbose. The gist is that exercising won’t make you lose weight. Keep you in shape, do good to your heart, etc. is all fine. But if it is kilos you are looking to lose, look elsewhere – like, in your plate, dude. It is something we always knew, of course. But the myth-buster is also a prime example of, what I fondly refer to as, the Spectacle Paradox. (more of why that, later).

Think about it. You exercise apparently to lose weight. Exercise makes you hungry. So you eat more. And all that jazz about turning useless fat into valuable muscle, falls tummy-flat, because the calorie count that you burn during a workout is always going to be a fraction of what you’ll ultimately consume. By eating. Back-to-square-meal-one.

I wear glasses. The power is, umm, significant. So much so, that without them the world for me is like a cheap brochure – pixelated due to free low-res images downloaded from google. So, every morning, when I wake up, the first thing I look for are my glasses. (So that the toothbrush reaches the right cavity.) But then, in a routine-case of not having any fixed resting place for them, I have to scamper around for the search. And the only thing that comes to my mind during the trivial pursuit is: “I am looking for something. For which I should be wearing glasses. But I am looking for my glasses. Gaaah!”

And, following my unmatched aesthetic taste, I have chosen a thin-chassis, almost transparent frame. Which does a nice chameleon act against any background. Now add the pixelated-universe salt to this situation. Not pretty. Nutshell, looking for glasses without glasses, is what came to be called the SP.

Other example.

There’s metro work going on in the city. To build the darned thing, they obviously have to cut trees. Which makes every greenpeacemaker quiver in his organic pants. They drive their SUVs to the site, and do a Gandhi in the garden. “No cut tree. They good for air. Else we die.” Fair enough. But without the metro, “No good public transport. More people drive more car. That not good for air. Either.” There’s no balance possible here. No matter what route they plan, there will be collateral damage.

Seriously, Joseph Heller should have called it Drop 22. No catches here to win any matches.

The world around us is spawning with these Drops.

The company you work for isn’t getting good people. Why? Because it doesn’t have good clients. So get good clients. They won’t come. Why? Because you don’t have good people. Perfect.

You can only afford to buy that superbike, seemingly necessary to impress chicks, after you have passed the age of having either the inclination or the looks to impress anyone. Yeah, the wind in your grey hair doesn’t have the same sound.

When I write copy, to get out anything near decent out of my knuckles, I need calm solitude. Combined impossibly with a certain kind of panic that involves venom-spewing account management breathing down my neck; and a cross-leg crushing urge to go to the loo. Only then does it work. Or does it? I will be able to judge my quality, only after the stage of my judgement being of any importance, passes. Catch that if you can.

9 comments:

agent green glass said...

whew. i felt like i was catching the 7.20 local to bandra. and they didn't tell me it was a superfast till i almost got blown out of the window.

drop 22 indeed. i agree with all of it. and feel mildly depressed now. but on the exercise front, let me tell you something. specially since i bought don't lose your mind, lose your weight at 100 bucks a pop at the signal.

eat as much as you want, after you excercise. apparently, and allegedly you can burn off all the shit in the world, including chocolates, butter chips and mutton biryani, if you chow the stuff up with in an hour of excercising. the body burns it all up.

don't ask how. i don't know. i'm just buying in to the theory. and calling it DROP 2 kg.

sorry for the long comment. tis a slow day at work : ) and btw, how do you link all this stuff. no, i really don't know. i tried to hide it, but...sigh!

slash\\ said...

@AGG: Best luck with the Drop 2. Keep us posted on how it goes.
In your compose post window, there's a small icon shaped like two links of a chain. (It will be in the vicinity of all the "bold" and "type" icons. Select the text in your post that you want to link, then click on this "link" icon. And then paste the URL in the window the pops up. Easy. (I think). Tell me if you still don't get it, i'll mail you a detailed walkthrough. (yeah, slow work days here too).

agent green glass said...

oh shit. that easy eh? thank you. *agent green glass sort of grovels* btw, i like these slow work days. specially when its a friday, and you're chewing your nails hoping no one comes with work at 5pm.

Jandy said...

paradox? sort of like your profile huh? the one mentioned here?
i got one for you though - we had an anti-smoking ad contest some time back, and the copy guys couldn't churn out a decent line until they lined up on the terrace - you got it - smoking their brains out hoping for a few good ideas.

Arslan said...

That was fun! :)

Liked the cheap brochure reference. Quite true, though my number isn't too high.

Why do greenpeacemakers speak like the Chinese? :P

And about the company you work for not being good and the spiral.. I wrote something about that here: http://arslanaziz.blogspot.com/2008/12/spirals.html

I read a funny line somewhere that I wouldn't want to work in a company that hires people like me.. :D

Cheers!

slash\\ said...

@jandy: i'm sure those guys would've come up with smoking hot concepts. won anything?

@Azlan: welcome. for the greenpeacemakers, i was trying the robotic-routine accent, but guess it didn't come out right ;)

Ships said...

Interesting post! Hilarious, thought provoking at the same time...

I like the glasses example. “I am looking for something. For which I should be wearing glasses. But I am looking for my glasses. Gaaah!”
Lol...

Neelima Vallangi said...

Nice read.. your theory is interesting! and the company-good clients-hired people thingy is hilarious. :D

slash\\ said...

@ships. glad you liked it. thanks for dropping by.

@wandering soul. yeah, that catch/drop situation has always haunted me. thanks for dropping by.