Selective Amnesia Is Not Recognised As An Illness

I'm often fascinated by various aspects of the human condition - I am in complete awe, for instance, of individuals who have experienced adrenaline rushes so great it allows them to lift a car in order to free a trapped loved one. There is one thing that people do, however, which never ceases to amuse me.

I love the incredible ability that the human race, as a collective, has for complaint - and before you any of you say anything, I am aware of the potential for irony in this blog post, occurring only when I start complaining about the whining masses. Of course, this post isn't really intended as a whinge in itself, so unless I get remarkably side-tracked then this post will remain about as ironic as the lyrical content of a song by Alanis Morissette.

Note that above I said the lyrical content, not the song itself. The song itself is ironic because, whilst it claims to be about irony and lists a number of situations which are purportedly ironic, it does not contain a single situation which is, itself, ironic. Maybe that's why she called it that in the first place? Perhaps Alanis is a lexical genius, and the rest of the English speaking population is so far beneath her that we just don't get her subtlety. Or perhaps she, like so many other people, just really doesn't understand irony (oh have I got a future blog post in me about that topic.)

Did you know that a cubit is approximately 45.72cm in length? That remark may seem rather non sequitor after telling you that this post would be about the ability of people to complain (and the small segue into irony). If you had heard the way some people are talking about the current rain situation here in Bathurst (as well as in Sydney, from what I have been lead to believe), however, then you would understand why I'd be trying to find out just how much wood I need in order to build an ark.

I have discovered, I believe, a sub-section of the population who will never be pleased with a situation, no matter which way it decides to turn. There are some people who, I have found, will complain about how dry it is, only to start crying that all of their plans are ruined the moment it rains. I've met people who whine all Summer long about how stinking hot it is, only to cry "Oh! I wish Summer would hurry back!" the moment it starts to cool down in Autumn. I've even known people who tell me that there is nothing for them to do on The Internet, and that they're bored with it, but then go into a frothing rage when their connection drops out.

My theory is that perhaps they are all selective amnesiacs, and forget the alternative to any given situation the moment it changes. Or it may just be because they're so dull that they have nothing else to talk about, and they just like to have a contrary opinion. Either way, it sometimes seems as though people believe that they have the amazing ability to change reality just be saying how much they hate the current one. Don't people know that they have to be the change that they want to see in the world? If they want it to rain, all they need to do is organise a large picnic at which everyone will wash their cars...

Of course, before I leave this topic, I should clarify that I'm not talking about people who like things a certain way. I know people, for instance, who don't like humidity or dryness in the weather, but start doing a happy-dance the moment it rains. That kind of complaint is fine (to a degree) because it ceases once the situation flips - only when the change brings about a different kind of complaint do things start to become both baffling and remarkable.

And so that's it - a relatively short post from me today, and also a fairly cohesive one. I wouldn't get used to it, though, as anybody who knows me even slightly could tell you that I have the attention span of - OH MY GOD BEES!!!

The moral of today's story is that Noah's Ark was, it is said, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits tall. The conversion to meters makes it a  137.16 x 22.86 x 13.716 object. And some of that space is negated because the ark has to curve, in order to actually remain buoyant. Given that the Titanic had dimensions of 269.06 x 28.19 x 53.34 I guess it turns out that something of biblical proportions isn't really that spectacular at all.