You’re right, but for the wrong reasons. And only partially right, and the error vindicates your victims, so it’s a wash.
The reason she won’t fix the nail is that the nail is a Chesterton’s Fence nail. It’s a feature, not a bug. It’s what’s LEFT OVER of pathology, after she’s found a way to vanquish the rest. It’s admirable that she’s found such a banal way to sublimate her weaknesses, such a trivial way to torture us.
The story goes that there’s a dragon terrorizing the village, right? And it captures the best girl and the best boy has to go beat the dragon and rescue her. So the problem is the dragon, right? WRONG
The dragon is WHAT’S LEFT of the insanity of nature and chaos, after the village has managed to order infinity down to a relatively tame shape: a dragon.
A dragon is nothing. A dragon is a blessing. An actual BOY can beat a dragon. Only the sleepiest of beauties even get taken by the dragon. Please let it be a dragon, and not the end of the world...
So in the nail girl world, she and her actually kinda cute little insanity are the great blessing of the little torture: The torture of infinity, brought to order, with only a small remainder for the right boy to contend with.
But it’s not about the nail. The right boy is not the great nail-remover; she could do that herself. But the nail dilemma is a pretty story, a way of looking sideways at the blinding light of the truth, a sun too bright to stare into too straight.
No one knows how to plug the crack where the light gets in. So you can either let it pour in unbearably, or you can pound the round nail of everything into the square hole of truth, take a deep breath, and have a little pride in your suspension of disbelief. Praise to the nail that gives us a second of space to breathe in, and praise to the man who can Indiana Jones switch the nail with some better solution.
But you are still right. I’m saying that this is a valid game of tradeoffs between blinding truth and blind pragmatism. But just because the actual nail game is valid does not mean it can’t be played better and worse, beautifully and uglily.
Some people already have better nails, and are just using the validity of the nail game as an excuse to keep using an inferior nail tale to pretend they’re a more Beautiful Sleepyhead than they are. There are other failure modes.
In short, the game of tradeoffs is deeper and more complicated than you express in this piece. There is wisdom in the silly insanity, the nail, the story of the world that needs a boy to save it. But there are still better ways to play the great game of tradeoffs, and many are failing more than they need to, failing others, too. They fail for pride and other “sins”. As you note, many of them are not even trying. Perhaps most people, I don’t know.
You’re right, but for the wrong reasons. And only partially right, and the error vindicates your victims, so it’s a wash.
The reason she won’t fix the nail is that the nail is a Chesterton’s Fence nail. It’s a feature, not a bug. It’s what’s LEFT OVER of pathology, after she’s found a way to vanquish the rest. It’s admirable that she’s found such a banal way to sublimate her weaknesses, such a trivial way to torture us.
The story goes that there’s a dragon terrorizing the village, right? And it captures the best girl and the best boy has to go beat the dragon and rescue her. So the problem is the dragon, right? WRONG
The dragon is WHAT’S LEFT of the insanity of nature and chaos, after the village has managed to order infinity down to a relatively tame shape: a dragon.
A dragon is nothing. A dragon is a blessing. An actual BOY can beat a dragon. Only the sleepiest of beauties even get taken by the dragon. Please let it be a dragon, and not the end of the world...
So in the nail girl world, she and her actually kinda cute little insanity are the great blessing of the little torture: The torture of infinity, brought to order, with only a small remainder for the right boy to contend with.
But it’s not about the nail. The right boy is not the great nail-remover; she could do that herself. But the nail dilemma is a pretty story, a way of looking sideways at the blinding light of the truth, a sun too bright to stare into too straight.
No one knows how to plug the crack where the light gets in. So you can either let it pour in unbearably, or you can pound the round nail of everything into the square hole of truth, take a deep breath, and have a little pride in your suspension of disbelief. Praise to the nail that gives us a second of space to breathe in, and praise to the man who can Indiana Jones switch the nail with some better solution.
But you are still right. I’m saying that this is a valid game of tradeoffs between blinding truth and blind pragmatism. But just because the actual nail game is valid does not mean it can’t be played better and worse, beautifully and uglily.
Some people already have better nails, and are just using the validity of the nail game as an excuse to keep using an inferior nail tale to pretend they’re a more Beautiful Sleepyhead than they are. There are other failure modes.
In short, the game of tradeoffs is deeper and more complicated than you express in this piece. There is wisdom in the silly insanity, the nail, the story of the world that needs a boy to save it. But there are still better ways to play the great game of tradeoffs, and many are failing more than they need to, failing others, too. They fail for pride and other “sins”. As you note, many of them are not even trying. Perhaps most people, I don’t know.