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phyllobates's picture

Elimination: a key component to my sanity

There is nothing that I look forward to more than crossing something off my list.  I think part of my love of crossing things out may be a result of conditioning.  In lower school we would always make lists and be rewarded when everything was crossed off.  Some of my fondest lower school memories center around music class and the winter/ spring sings that we would do.  Our music teacher would make a list of all the songs we needed to learn and then highlight part of it off the list as we improved.  Once the list was completely highlighted we would get some kind of treat.  So maybe this accounts for my strong feelings for crossing things out (at least it explains why my planar is completely highlighted)...

This is not to say that I don't embrace the notion of adding new creative ideas to the world.  It is like finding a new color crayon in the crayon box.  With a creative idea you can recolor your world, a tree can be purple and who doesn't love that!   But when it comes to making sense of the world I want to cross things off of my list.  There are too many possibilities and I guess I want answers and some predictability.  I like to know that my plane will not fall out of the sky mid flight due to an undiscovered possibility.  I NEED for some things to be crossed out.

 

So I guess here is my division:

-literature: i'm okay with adding things to the list

but

-science: please eliminate eliminate eliminate (and be sure that you cross out the correct thing, I don't want my plane falling out of the sky)

oh and

-work: please let me cross you out too

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