Crazy Man

I'm fairly certain that my regular readers have some sense of my rather wild, arcane and often bizarre sense of humor. While I write very few posts whose main intent is to be funny, my writings are sprinkled with hints of comedy.

One vehicle I use frequently is to employ oddly phrased examples to try to underscore a particular point. For example, if the focus of a specific post is about the trials and tribulations of being the farmer's daughter, I will routinely eschew referencing the farmer's daughter and the traveling salesman and instead suggest we look at the farmer's goat and the local postmaster! Aha, an odd example embedded in an already odd example!!

From my perspective, one of the chief problems in using run-of-the-mill examples is that, too often, they tend to reinforce what we already think or believe. Utilizing typical imagery allows us to skim over the surface of important issues and not feel the need or impetus to dig below the surface. But a cockeyed example forces us to look at things from an angle that we might not normally gaze from. Besides, I take my inspiration from Chuang Tzu who is able to twist the mind of the reader in more directions than we thought possible! ; )