MINCING THOSE WITH LIMITED WORLD-VIEWS

‘Yeh, pal—real smooth. Whaddya got loose screws up there buddy anybody home.’

‘I understand time as a cycle, is my peace and I’ve spoken it.’

‘Honest to god. Day before easter this guy’s got the enterprise.’

‘In fact repeated such. -Peace. Which peace opposes your more usual Western linear understanding.’

‘Guy’s got the enterprise to butt-line. Plain as day this guy.’

‘Let me illustrate a thing to you so help me god.’

‘All a sudden we got a new runner-up on checkout.’

‘Thus I am able.’

‘No I got all day. Just here buying the candy eggs for yours truly.’

‘Rather I am predisposed. To draw similarities to draw strong similarities between selves at any point along the temporal plane.’

‘Suddenly this guy’s talking to me about plain.’

‘Theoretical selves. Cyclical. Past, present, and what follows.’

‘Plain as a cow does moo. Sticking out like two big sore ones.’

‘Future.’

‘Let me do you a service, pal.’

‘Imagine. Just as a speedway’s competitor turns continuously in one direction, reversing himself at regular intervals and racing, finally, to the line from which he started, so too do those unproved time-tenses haul ass outward, just there beyond like your figurative periphery, two vanishing points you can’t get to see like how you get at a lesson on perspective or at high-school art.’

‘Line buddy you’re up … Runway’s cleared we got the signal.’

‘Which is what I’m talking about. Perspective. You got these blinders on, like a big horse-face. And all you got is the here and now, as they say.’

‘Here and now he says. Called check out for a reason pal everybody’s moving.’

‘Notice I didn’t say continually. Continually means you stop every here and there.’

‘You go before me, ‘member? That’s the whole point of butting on a line, bud … if even you’re the type a guy’s got the enterprise, day before easter … Hey … pal. Heh. {looks around w/ mock astonishment that is in fact real astonishment} Heh … Hoo, earth to this guy we got a cleanup in aisle this guy’s aisle.’

‘That’s what that word connotes.’

‘Hoo! {proceeds to chuckle self-consciously, pivoting head horizontally, posing these questions to three or four empty aisles within hearing range: Is this guy a nut-job or what. Can you imagine the enterprise.}’

‘Denotes.’

Ross and Wilson (2003) posit that people do inflate their current-self, but that if they do so too enthusiastically they risk constructing a self-evaluation that “may become implausibly inconsistent with objective standards.” This over-inflation of present-self leads to an unsound conception of that self—an argument with holes. A more practical illustration of this concept might be hit upon by examining the self-assessment of a hypothetical, middle-aged realtor called Thom. Thom approximates he runs a pretty tight ship, that he’s chock-full of bargaining firepower, and—as Thom takes his PM flossing regimen all-in-all quite seriously—that his grin is an object of huge dental significance, sore premolar notwithstanding. All told, Thom’s estimate is that the guy’s got backbone. But because Thom is no longer received by either buyers or sellers, to whom he lofts expletives at from a highly secure & monitored distance,  it is hard for Thom to maintain his role as intermediary. It becomes increasingly difficult for Thom to uphold his … imperfect self-assessment, especially shoeless in February and his head where dissonance resounds.