Hokum & Hooey.

I was watching a fairly enjoyable movie and something Chris Rock’s character said really echoed what I think. Something to the effect that “living every day like it’s your last” is a bunch of hokum, because you’ll probably live till you're 80 with all your (definitely regrettable, with that attitude) actions till then.

I mean really, it sounds grand when people say it. Like so many other things people are fond of saying but don’t believe a word of themselves. Apply it to your own life and you’ll know what I mean, if you don’t already.

Take my life. (It’s my blog, so don’t expect me to talk about yours.) If I took it into my head to live tomorrow like it was my last day -- this is what I would do, in all honesty:

Shave my head. Call up a lot of people and be ‘honest’; just like they’ve always been with me (You’re not all that good-looking yourself, and you have an ass the size of Madhya Pradesh, man!). Quit my job. Put on a LOT of make- up, something tight; and go out and blow my life savings on something fun.

Problems will arise the next day, when the sad fact that even though I lived the previous day LIKE it was my last day, it actually wasn’t. I’ll look like a chubby Sinhead O Connor. No one will speak to me. I’ll have no money and no means to recover what I’ve blown on a Paris Hilton style party in every city marathon. As well as a faint chance of a night in the lock up.

So the resultant situation may push me towards making the day my last; but that isn’t what they meant, was it?

Similarly -- “Nothing is impossible”.

A lot of things are impossible.

Boys and Girls, PLEASE, puh-leeaaaase don’t listen to sappy children’s movies or books that have the good-looking and sincere ‘Daddy’ character consoling his offspring, who has just spent a day trying to invent a time-machine, but-just-couldn’t. Boo HOO.

“If you WANT something badly enough, and go after it, Nothing is impossible, darling. And remember Daddy loves you very much.”

Excuse me while I shake my head sadly. What’s the matter with the good looking but sincere Daddy? Doesn’t he know that if what he said were true, the world would be full of flying pigs? Messing up children’s heads with all this nonsense is what drives them to alcoholism and crime anyway, because they’re thinking, “If everything is possible and after all my hard work it still didn’t happen… then how big a loser does that make me???”

At the most one could say:

“If you already have the prodigious ability (tested by several doctors) and patience at 5 years old to build a time machine, and a multi- billion dollar corporation financially backing you on the project; nothing is impossible.”

Kinda different, innit?

And so on, really. “Be yourself”; “It’s the thought that counts”; “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose; what matters is that you TRIED”; "We're ALL winners."

It’s all hooey. Someone hand me a shovel.