(no subject)
Why do we watch the weather forecast here? Our location makes it almost impossible to predict what will have blown in a few hours from now, and yet most of our parents turn to channel 3 or 10 or 13 every morning and then tell us how warmly we’ll need to dress. The weathermen are nearly always wrong, and it’s not that I blame them, but they seem to just have to take one possibility and run with it, hoping viewers will buy it. And they do! Adults might sometimes point out how unpredictable the conditions here are, but they seem to reset themselves as they watch the forecast and accept it all as fact, with no doubts whatsoever; it's as if they've forgotten that the same guy just told them it would be a beautiful clear day today, and then they had to run around the house shutting all the windows up as it started to pour. They just start watching it again, like the man in the Sears suit with the Colgate smile rightfully speaks with the confidence of someone whose been let in on a big secret.
(If we realized that we‘d never truly KNOW a storm was going to hit us (and how little we truly ever do know), we wouldn’t know what to do. The illusion of fact is the crux of our sanity-- it creates logic and logic governs our actions. )
But I am glad that weatherman is there. I guess a feeling of certainty is worth those “few extra layers” on a warm day, and “better bring that umbrella” on a cloudless day. Though we might have been told wrong, at least we weren’t told nothing at all. Speculation can drive one more mad than any amount of cold.
(If we realized that we‘d never truly KNOW a storm was going to hit us (and how little we truly ever do know), we wouldn’t know what to do. The illusion of fact is the crux of our sanity-- it creates logic and logic governs our actions. )
But I am glad that weatherman is there. I guess a feeling of certainty is worth those “few extra layers” on a warm day, and “better bring that umbrella” on a cloudless day. Though we might have been told wrong, at least we weren’t told nothing at all. Speculation can drive one more mad than any amount of cold.