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Wednesday, January 7, 2009

792. i ams what i ams

when i think of popeye, i don't normally think great philosopher, but few have yet to more elegantly state a true human condition.
"i ams what i ams".
(maybe more eloquently but certainly not as to the point)

and it is with that in mind that i am moved to extrapolate, we ares what we ares.

there are things about all of us we can not shake.
it's as if we are wired like a motherboard to take certain impulses in and push responses out.
and there is little that can be done otherwise.

i am reminded of this by a rather innocent discussion in blogcatalog, started by timethief.
it is about "pruning" excesses in the coming year—you know, those things that redirect the we ares away from the what we ares.

and after much reflection, i concluded and then commented that i needed to prune this notion that i can write humor.
but after a little more thought, i realized i had concluded wrongly.
popeye rang in my ears, i ams what i ams.
i can't help it!
give me an impulse and out comes funny (at least to me).

so what i really need to prune is that which gets in the way of the what i ams.
those would be the utterances and faces of naysayers, and the roots of self doubt they nourish—it's such a what i ams depleter.

hmm, in the words of another great philosopher, gordan ramsay, "what the f#ck are yeh doin' big boy?"

i ams what i ams, gordy!
that's what i'm doin'!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And that my friend is why you must keep doing what you do...

hyoid archie said...

Popeye - pure genius. I ams what I ams indeed. And this reminds me of a joke:

Descartes walks into a bar. Barkeep says "what'll ya have?"

Descartes says "um, gimme a scotch an water."

Barkeep says "you want ice?"

Descartes says "i think not." And then he disappeared.

Robert Crane said...

km - we'll see. "what i ams" needs to makes some yams, if you know what i mean.

archie - another beaut. now if descartes had a duck with him, well there's no telling how many days the laughs would commence.