no, really. I mean it. really.

[trochee]

In lieu of writing about the careening potential trainwrecks in my own life, I will instead point you to writing by other smart folks, by which I mean smart folks, rather.

I was going to write the following as a comment on that post, but I decided to take it as my own entry:

I must say here that all you people are too fucking smart. I'm impressed and humbled by the intelligence and sincerity -- interesting, considering the subject -- provided to this rather excellent post. boymaenad's comment, there at what-is-currently-the-end, is a stunning example thereof.

Reading all the brilliant comments and intelligent, well-read and well-thought-out discussion there makes me want to quit my machine-learning-and-linguistics and just try to keep up with all you smart people.

Fuck! as if to torture me (and to prove anthrochica's point), I can't seem to express my own sincere admiration without sounding like an ironic sour-grapes bullshitter. See: go reread the last two paragraphs, but assume I'm sneering.

See? anything I say ("no, really!") just sounds like more of the same. No, really!

We as a community are the boy-who-cried-wolf. sadness, disgust, and the sense of ill-fit and worry (or paranoia) in our world have become just another style. Sincerity, through some Gricean maximal pretzel-twist, can only be read as a very clever ironic pose, and true sincerity is just one-up-manship.

Comments

[trochee.livejournal.com]

wow. couldn't have asked for a better comic to illustrate the point.

And I agree that Jeremy is completely sincere about looking for "ironic", which brings the whole thing full circle.

*shakes head to clear it*

thanks for the keen eye...