Do you ever stop to think about something, and realize that it's just... really really weird? For example:
• Eyebrows - random little tufts of extra course hair above your eyes. I get that they're supposed to block sweat from seeping into your vulnerable eyes, but still. Weird. And even though I think we'd all look even weirder without them, why are they always under such scrutiny? Why does conforming to the normally accepted codes of grooming make you more feminine? Why are they such a big deal that we go out of our way (and into the direct path of intense pain) just to make them look like everyone else's? How come sometimes really blonde people have really bushy, dark eyebrows? I feel bad for them....
• Cars - I think about this one a lot. How random is it that someone came up with the theory about strapping an engine to thousands of pounds of steel, and plopping someone into the front left (or front right - I don't want to discriminate...) seat with a little wheel that can control it all? Plus the fact that it just picked up so quickly... that no one challenges it. I often wonder about what the world would be like if just a few key people hadn't been born, or hadn't been in the position to share their ideas. Had Henry Ford (at first I typed "Harrison Ford" on accident - I guess that just shows where MY mind is) not streamlined the production process and marketed the infamous Model-T, would the type of automobiles so popular today even be mainstream?
• Clothes- who decided that a skirt or dress is feminine? How is it more masculine to have your legs completely enveloped in fabric? How weird are accessories, huh? I mean, I criticize ancient women and men I see in museums attempting to perk up their style with a few beads, or a nice piercing, but how is that really different from modern jewelry? Is a necklace more than just some metal or fibers strung across the neck to draw attention? And isn't it even a little barbaric that I choose to poke metal through my earlobe and dangle something shiny on the end of it?
• The concept of "forever"- probably one of the most frustrating things for me is that I'm so limited in my mental capacity. How frustrating it is that I can't even begin to comprehend these topics because of my mere mortal mind. When I really think about it... EVERYTHING that I consider, every thought I entertain, every dream and aspiration is based at least in some small degree on the concept that EVERYTHING has to end. I can't even comprehend the idea of forever because to me, everything is finite. Everything has a time limit. So when I really focus on imagining FOREVER, it blows my mind. Really. I get weirded out every time I think about it for too long.
• Reality TV shows - Why do people get so much joy out of watching other people a) get embarrassed, b) fail, c) make fools of themselves, or d) all of the above? How is THAT supposed to be entertaining?
• Language (both oral and written) - How incredible is it that I can think something, and be able to put into words how I feel? Or even just that our minds are complex enough to be able to recognize letters: a series of familiar lines, strokes and dots and interpret those into words, which alone can still convey some meaning but strung together can create complex scenarios and portray complex emotions - all within a fraction of a second!? Or the evolution of language. English, Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Portuguese, probably even Polish :) all evolved similarly in that they all use letters combined to make words combined to make sentences which show deeper meaning. But many oriental languages, rather than being based on small characters to make words have individual characters for each word - each emotion - each idea. I'm reminded of one of my favorite Star Trek episodes (mock me if you will) where Captain Picard is trapped on an alien planet, and the oh-so-convenient universal translator cannot even help him completely understand the native language, because even when it was translated into English, the syntax was too foreign to completely understand. Picard eventually has an epiphany in which it becomes clear that this foreign language had no concept of present tense, or current emotions. That everything was related back to cultural fables, and generations-old stories and legends. To express something, they had to reference a previous incident. For example, the apex of the episode is that one of the natives keeps repeating the phrase, "Darmok and Gilad at Tenagra" and Picard can't figure out what he's saying. It turns out that Darmok was a great hero, sort of the beowulf to this planet's culture. He encountered a great beast at the island of Tenagra, and was able to defeat it only with the help of Gilad, a former enemy. So when this creature is repeatedly crying out, "Darmok and Gilad at Tenagra" he is proposing an alliance. Isn't that interesting? But then I think... isn't this concept of an entirely historical context sort of true of English, and all other formal means of communication as well? My verbal and written expressions are limited by words that someone in the past has coined. I can't just make up a new word, say, "smurfglash" to explain how I'm feeling at the moment and expect anyone else to understand! Language, in the inefficient way that we use it (person A thinks, speaks, person B hears, converts, comprehends, interprets, and forms a response) will always be tied down in this way because of the necessity for universality.
• Competition - Why am I always so competitive? And it's not just me, it's the entire human race, I think. I think it's directly related to the fact that we all have this mind-set that everything is finite. That we're all running on fossil fuels and there's no source of renewable energy. Why do I have to be better than someone else? Would it really make a difference in the end if we all reach the same goal - but someone reaches it first, or someone passes the finish line and has just a little more momentum so that after skidding to a stop they're ahead of me linearly? Why do I always think that others' successes minimize mine?
Wow. That was a lot deeper than I had intended (especially since I never thought I'd divulge my embarrassingly passionate love for Star Trek). But seriously, don't you think eyebrows are weird?
