Deep Thoughts vs random thoughts
Featuring: Boring people, AI, roadside signs, spinets AND MORE
We were somewhere over the United States or possibly the Atlantic Ocean when Tara started sharing deep thoughts. Tara was—still is—my 3-week-younger cousin and the instigator of a trip to England and Switzerland for the two of us and her friend. I funded my 17-year-old way by collecting insects and developing a life-long fear of spiders. Speaking of that, here’s an important update: I have reclaimed my porch, and didn’t even harm Charlotte/Charles in the process. Lynda would be so proud.
Anyway, so there Jenna and I were, being regaled by what I thought were musing of Tara’s brain, nuggets like:
When the age of the Vikings came to a close, they must have sensed it. Probably, they gathered together one evening, slapped each other on the back and said, "Hey, good job."
If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flipper, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flipper, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone.
To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?," you can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."
I can't stand cheap people. It makes me real mad when someone says something like "Hey, when are you going to pay me that hundred dollars you owe me?" or "Do you have that fifty dollars you borrowed?" Man, quit being so cheap!
Tara has always had a stellar sense of humor and a lot of confidence, and while I found her gems kind of funny, I was also a little confused by them. They didn’t SOUND like she was just making them up on the spot, so had she memorized her own lines? We could say that my sense of humor was still in the early days of its decades-long development stage.
It was the next school year in Mrs. Hanula’s AP Psychology class that I learned that Tara’s airplane thoughts had an OFFICIAL name (“Deep Thoughts”) and they had been written by an OFFICIAL guy (Jack Handey). To defend Tara’s honor I should be clear that she wasn’t trying to pass them off as her own. Teenage Emily just didn’t even know that Saturday Night Live was a thing and thus couldn’t have even known about Jack’s surrealistic comedy sketches. This is what happens when you grow up without a television and you get your kicks from teasing cows.1
Anyway, the thoughts that flutter through my convoluted mind are NOT deep like Jack Handey’s, but they sure are thoughts. The below sampling of recent thoughts will give you a peek into how my brain operates on a day-to-day basis.
“Oh, great. Who put the BORING people in charge of AI?”
Sometimes it seems like the smart ones creating this thing that could seriously ruin the party of living fully haven’t really lived themselves. You know? By “lived,” I’m talking about people risking and failing and living in personal uncertainty and being academically and otherwise average.
“Is he really just cleaning the car?
When you see someone cleaning their car extra thoroughly, tell me you also don’t also recall Dateline episodes where people are able clean their car well enough that they eradicate incriminating evidence.
“We’re all turning into senior citizen texters.”
The way at least I respond to AI reminds me of how many senior citizens communicate via text—cryptically.
Accidental Example #1
Claude: Cheerfully shares a long, helpful solution or explanation.
Me: “too long. Try again.”
Accidental Example #2
Me: “what are the electronic signs above interstates caled”
ChatGPT: Shares a thorough answer and ends with a polite question. “Would you like me to give you the official U.S. DOT terminology, or just the everyday “what people call them” version?”
Me: “everyday people”
Here I’m really showing myself to be the poster child of being a real good writer and AI prompt engineer.
“Well, don’t I feel sheepish.”
This after learning (from Claude) that it’s spelled “whoa,” not “woah” like I’ve written my whole life.
Whoa.
“I remind myself a lot of Elizabeth Bennett (from Pride and Prejudice).
I possess no fortune, I’m not particularly good at anything—you should HEAR me on the spinet—but I write a lot.”
No comment.
“Sometimes you’ve got to clear the decks before you can add stuff back in.”
No comment. But there’s just GOT to be something insightful in there.
Context: I was driving along at 74 m.p.h and looking at a wildfire very prominent on a local mountain.
The electronic sign on the interstate: “WILDFIRE: DO NOT REPORT”
My suggested edit: “WILDFIRE: WE ALREADY KNOW”
While I find this funnier, it also feels more effective, because I don’t think the government wants to train people to NEVER report wildfires. While doing research for this article, I did discover that funny messages on these signs are going away which I think is really too bad.2
“Way to go, you guys!”
At the USPS, the terminals have a new prompt, kind of like they have in some gas station bathrooms. “Were you treated with courtesy?” Then you have three options like this (☹️😐🙂) but shown in red (VERY BAD!), yellow (OKAY), and green (VERY GOOD!).
I suddenly understood why it felt like I was treated with much more courtesy yesterday.
At More to Your Life, we’re nothing if but eager to adopt good ideas, so let’s try this:
Please answer the following three questions by either using a corresponding emoji (☹️😐🙂) or using your words.
What’s your latest deep thought?
Will you now view the thorough cleaning people at car washes differently?
How are your spinet skills?
Isn’t life cool, and aren’t people and our thoughts fascinating? See you in the next one…
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Please appreciate this writerly foreshadowing of next week’s piece on cows. And New York/New Yorkers. Thank you.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/no-joke-feds-banning-humorous-electronic-messages-highways-rcna134240
I recognized those Deep Thoughts!!! So many gems. Here’s my fave:
“Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and so is mankind.” 😆😆
Resentment is born when people don’t obey us.