This I Believe - NPR Essay
Jan. 22nd, 2007 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwrnmnbsolWe live in uncertain times. Every day we are confronted with new things -- upheavals in the world, changes in technology, new music, new disasters, strange portents and omens. It sometimes appears that the world grows more complex by the hour, requiring more and more effort just to mark time and stay on top of what is going on around us.
In these times of chaos and confusion, I find the solidity of personal conviction to be a welcome oasis. The unwavering nature of belief can be an eye in the storm surrounding us -- the storm of science, politics, religion and opinion, its winds blowing in every direction, battering and disorienting us, causing us to doubt what we know, or think we know. Faith, however, is steady. Faith relies on no outside facts or figures; it stands alone. This is good, because there is no fact or figure that cannot be called into question. Today, black can be white, up is sometimes down, and left and right are frequently interchangeable. None of these things, however, can shake my certainty regarding the important principles in which I believe.
I believe we are filled with glue.
Not just any glue. We are filled with Elmer's glue -- white, tacky, and just at the gooey state before it begins to harden. Touch your skin -- go ahead! and feel the resilience there. We are giant, walking bags full of glue, and when we die we will curdle and turn clear, and the metallic mice will eat our bones.
Ah, but do we not bleed? I hear this question so often it makes me sick. We don't really bleed, fools! Idiots! The evil doctor conspiracy has made a devil's bargain with the tiny gnomes that live in the ticks between seconds, and when we are cut they stop time and fill our wounds with red stuff. They do not want it known that we are simpler creatures than their elaborate deception of anatomy would have us believe. We are marvelous, elegant, gluey receptacles.
I believe our glue comes from Regulon 7, in the vicinity of Antares, where the inhabitants are graceful and sylphlike, and their eerie haunting music fills the cavernous intestinal chambers of the glue-works. The glue flows backwards through time and space, and collects in large reservoirs under the polar icecaps. When a child is conceived, the glue is injected into the womb by Jesus, who personally visits every expectant mother at the stroke of midnight on the second Tuesday of every month. Some children receive not enough or too much glue. These children are evil and must be destroyed.
I believe we are filled with glue because I have never yet been led astray by the messages I receive through my fillings. On clear, cold nights I receive between eight and twenty messages from angels, or smog-monsters, or both. They tell me about the secret lives of snails, several plots against humanity, and the best ways to keep your brain from overheating. I believe every word they tell me, because it is better to believe in something than to know everything and believe in nothing.
At the end of the day, I am comforted knowing that we are all full of glue. No matter how inexplicable the world may become, it is good to know that we all share a common bond. When somebody tells me that up is down, I smile and nod, because I know that both of us are full of glue, and no matter what happens, one day our remains will be devoured by tiny robotic rodents. Our glue will be recycled, and we will once more rejoin humanity as kindred gluey spirits, as one, at peace.
In these times of chaos and confusion, I find the solidity of personal conviction to be a welcome oasis. The unwavering nature of belief can be an eye in the storm surrounding us -- the storm of science, politics, religion and opinion, its winds blowing in every direction, battering and disorienting us, causing us to doubt what we know, or think we know. Faith, however, is steady. Faith relies on no outside facts or figures; it stands alone. This is good, because there is no fact or figure that cannot be called into question. Today, black can be white, up is sometimes down, and left and right are frequently interchangeable. None of these things, however, can shake my certainty regarding the important principles in which I believe.
I believe we are filled with glue.
Not just any glue. We are filled with Elmer's glue -- white, tacky, and just at the gooey state before it begins to harden. Touch your skin -- go ahead! and feel the resilience there. We are giant, walking bags full of glue, and when we die we will curdle and turn clear, and the metallic mice will eat our bones.
Ah, but do we not bleed? I hear this question so often it makes me sick. We don't really bleed, fools! Idiots! The evil doctor conspiracy has made a devil's bargain with the tiny gnomes that live in the ticks between seconds, and when we are cut they stop time and fill our wounds with red stuff. They do not want it known that we are simpler creatures than their elaborate deception of anatomy would have us believe. We are marvelous, elegant, gluey receptacles.
I believe our glue comes from Regulon 7, in the vicinity of Antares, where the inhabitants are graceful and sylphlike, and their eerie haunting music fills the cavernous intestinal chambers of the glue-works. The glue flows backwards through time and space, and collects in large reservoirs under the polar icecaps. When a child is conceived, the glue is injected into the womb by Jesus, who personally visits every expectant mother at the stroke of midnight on the second Tuesday of every month. Some children receive not enough or too much glue. These children are evil and must be destroyed.
I believe we are filled with glue because I have never yet been led astray by the messages I receive through my fillings. On clear, cold nights I receive between eight and twenty messages from angels, or smog-monsters, or both. They tell me about the secret lives of snails, several plots against humanity, and the best ways to keep your brain from overheating. I believe every word they tell me, because it is better to believe in something than to know everything and believe in nothing.
At the end of the day, I am comforted knowing that we are all full of glue. No matter how inexplicable the world may become, it is good to know that we all share a common bond. When somebody tells me that up is down, I smile and nod, because I know that both of us are full of glue, and no matter what happens, one day our remains will be devoured by tiny robotic rodents. Our glue will be recycled, and we will once more rejoin humanity as kindred gluey spirits, as one, at peace.
