I can’t even tell you how often someone comes up to me on the street and says “Kenan, you seem to have life all figured out. Can you give me a list of rules that I can follow to live a happy life?” I cannot tell you how often this happens. Actually, I can tell you how often this happens: never. This never happens.
If this were to happen I would reply that I cannot provide anyone with a list of rules that lead to a happy life. This is not because I don’t have all the answers. I think it is clear that I do. This is not because everyone is an individual; I think it is clear that we are not. The first problem is that good rules don’t exist to make you happy; they exist to make you do the right thing. And we all should realize by now that the only thing more unpleasant than doing the right thing is not doing the right thing. The second problem is I don’t say things that I don’t believe to be true. While we have it on pretty good authority that the truth will set us free, whoever believes that freedom and happiness are inextricably linked has probably never experienced either of these abstractions undiluted.
So what good is truth? The obvious answer is that it is the fastest way to make most people angry, but there is a less obvious answer that is almost as useful at parties and on the floor of the Senate. There is an old saying that if you are playing poker and you look around the table and don’t know who the sucker is, it’s you. That is what the truth can offer, insight into who the sucker is. It won’t free you from falling into the situation in which you are the sucker, but when those situations inevitably arise, you, at least, will know. They say knowing is half the battle, to which I say, “Knowing what?” and “Which half?”
The half the battle that knowing is is the awareness when we should and when we should not to fight the aforementioned battle. The “half” is the important half. Unfortunately, if we live by good rules we fight when we should, and not when it is clear that we can win. When you are about to be vanquished it is important to know that the destruction your enemy will cause is preferable to the self-destruction that non-involvement will make inevitable. That is what makes tragic heroes tragic.
In case you are concerned by the martial turn this line of reasoning has taken, be at peace. The battles I speak of don’t involve literal warfare, except in the cases where they do. I firmly believe that a life well lived is similar to a war except with better food and an only slightly lower chance of dying during the work day. Life requires strategy, tactics, logistical planning, and a clear sense of what you are fighting for.
If you have ever read about the life of Colonel Sanders you learn that this was a man who fought very hard in the war of life. He fought to bring fabulous fried chicken to customers and greater prosperity to the small restaurant owners who sold his chicken. When running a simple service station wasn’t keeping his family afloat, he started to cook fried chicken. When pan-frying chicken was taking too long, he invented pressure-cooking frying to speed the process. When the US highway system destroyed his business, he started franchising his chicken to small restaurant owners. When the buyer of this American franchise pushed him out, he moved to Canada where he still had control. When the same American franchises corrupted his food, he said so.
Is it silly to spend a life fighting to bring delicious fried chicken to the people? Maybe, but Mr. Sanders made a lot of people happy, and he made a lot of people more prosperous. So fried chicken might be silly, but a really good dinner and money in the bank sure ain’t.
So here for the betterment of the community I present some silly rules and/or truths that I have cooked up in the pressure cooker of my brain. I hope they will hit your linguistic pallet with the same delightful crunch and aroma that I image those first Kentucky travelers must have experienced all those many years ago in Harlan’s little service station.
- “Follow your bliss.” We listened and like ships lost in the night we eschewed the stars and navigated by clouds.
- Why do people believe that aesthetic brilliance equals wisdom? It’s like taking investment advice from someone because they’re a good cook.
- People desire fame in order to gain love and escape intimacy. In this way, fame shares much with promiscuity.
- The primary concern of nature is how to make a seed survive. From this truth comes all behavior and fruit.
- The reality of these events is so horrible that these representations make us believe, falsely, that we know what horror is.
- The value of harmony is the potential for discord.
- On Listening to “That Guy” Talk: There is nothing worse than autobiography masquerading as insight.
- On Thinking About What “That Guy” Said: The accidents of his upbringing have become the universal laws of nature.
- Things are what they are. They are not trying to be something else and failing.
- On The Value of the Delicate: Wheat is less valuable as a food because it keeps.
- When you see the color of an object, remember, that is the one color the object is rejecting.
- On Personal Affinity: In order to have magnetism you must have polarity.
- The lesson of string: The most delicate fibers if spun tightly could move the Earth, but for the lack of a fulcrum and a place to stand.
- American Fear: “The fault dear Brutus lies not in the stars but in ourselves that we are not always happy.”
- Counter-factual thinking is the Adversary’s playground.
- On Introspection: In matters of the heart, the mind is always the last to know.
And, lastly, one of the great truths of life, that Harlan Sanders knew, but only the rascally Alisa Malinovich could crystallize into words:
- The key to success in America is to find something really really stupid and take it really really seriously.
Until next time, I’ll be sticking to the Original Recipe.
