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August 06, 2008 |
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The Problem with People Is
FOUND by Apple
in Dillon, Montana
I found this note on the back of somebody's dinner check at the restaurant I work at. I think it holds a lot of truth.
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The Bridezilla... November 03, 2005 |
They're Hard to Get... July 12, 2005 |
The F Word December 11, 2005 |
The Serve June 13, 2005 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
But what's it say on the back!??
If I was in the next booth at the restaurant eavesdropping on the conversation, I'd assume someone was reinterpreting the lyrics to John Lennon's "Imagine."
i wonder wether an actual nihilist wrote this or if was just some hippie who didn't quite get what he wrote there
I remember that someone named Siddharta Gautama said just that. So, not a very original thought.
Unoriginal, indeed.
"accept"
Ahhh...bathtub philosophy. Like bathtub gin, home made and of dubious content and quality. But you make it yourself and it costs you nothing.
I take serious exception to the last line: "If we don't put value to anything, nobody is going to steal it--life included." Untrue. It's the societies and cultures that don't value human life that have cheapened it beyond recall, and steal it from others without compunction. And the world looks on without demure. I think of sex slaves in Thailand and other places...people who starve in countries where things other nations take for granted (like clean water) are lacking. Meanwhile the 1st world countries discuss "compassion fatigue."
Only by valuing life can we cultivate true compassion...the kind that acts directly instead of pontificating.
Obviously, it's the lack of 'value' that has been placed on life that causes the shooting, and killings gone rampant in our streets. No one is teaching our children that life is precious.
i think that we don't grieve enough, or grieve too long about the wrong things. It's placing more value on life that makes it more difficult to steal.
this person had the right idea, wrong way of going about it.
The REAL problem is when sentients get sentimental. Then they are sentenced to being sentinels for the heart.
The author just does not make any sense here...I agree with MONA and BABY BASIL...right idea...wrong way of putting it.
This is a really long-winded way of saying, "I'm afraid of grief."
Heh. I think Dave just hit the nail on the head.
...and as the last couple 'sentences' remind us: if you don't want people to steal stuff, don't put valves on them
Uh, if we grieve too much it's because we ARE placing a high value on life. If we placed no value on life, there would be no grief when it is lost.
Just another puddle yearning to be deep.
Hey Farmer - s/he corrected the except/accept. Or maybe it was right to begin with and s/he "corrected" it wrong.
I don't get Apple's blurb. The other side of this "dinner check" is definitely not food ordered. Is it the first half of this philosophical rant?
Mrs Shazam: Oh, Mrs Nigger-Baiter's exploded.
Son: Good thing, too.
Mrs Shazam: She was my best friend.
Son: Oh, mother, don't be so Sentimental. Things explode every day.
Mrs Shazam: Yes, I suppose so. Anyway, I didn't really like her that much.
For once (and this is a little frightening to me), I agree with Baby Basil.
And Justsayin' ... 'another puddle yearning to be deep'? God, you are full of yourself. I hate it when others pass judgement on something that the writer never intended to be posted for the world to see in the first place.
Although I'm no expert ... I rather imagine that the Great Lakes started as a puddle someplace.
I think this is one of the bleakest things I've read in a while.
Humans probably have a tendancy to grieve too much, but frankly it's what MAKES us human!
We're all different and no two people grieve in the same way. (Just watch a large family when a parent passes away )
If anything I think American Culture 'memorializes' too much. . . how many benches in the park really need to be dedicated to someone ?
Oh Em Geeee a find from Deelightful Dillon, America. Apple, we NEED to know what diner you work in. (this find should have been posted on Labor Day. Just so you know.)
Prolonged Grief is selfish. you're not grieving for the lost one. You're grieving for YOUR feelings. How the loss makes YOU feel. It's as wasteful an emotion as hatred.
Yeah, that's what we need to do - devalue life more than we already do.
Brilliant!
@baby basil
that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking. though worded much better, after reading "If we don't put value to anything, nobody is going to steal it, life included." my mind was still stuck at "that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard"
first of all, "not putting value to anything" is a completely unrealistic goal. because as long as you are alive and self aware, it would be impossible to "put value to nothing", no mater how emotionless you are. just simple survival instinct will make you value the most basic things like food, shelter, NOT being eaten alive by wolves. the only way to even approach valuing Nothing would be to completely lack the will to live, and does that seem like a well adjusted/admirable state of mind?
second, "not putting value to anything" would NOT mean "nobody is going to steal it". because no mater how much or little YOU value something, others may try to steal it because They WANT or NEED it. you'd have to make every one ELSE value nothing, and even assuming they no longer want anything, some would still steal things they need.
and as for the implied idea that people who hold no value for human life, won't commit murder. well that's just so blatantly absurd and ignorant of the human behavior, history, and current world events, that is makes my head explode.
I think this person is obviously grieving a loss, and is in denial about it. He's saying I don't want to be hurt by a loss, so I won't get attached.
We've caught a snapshot of this person's feeling as he / she processes the death of a loved one.
Basil's right "Only by valuing life can we cultivate true compassion"
Life without loving is not a life at all.
seems to me someone is feeling a little emo here....
this just reminds me of how much i felt sorry (and sorrow) for myself as a teen. this note feels like someone is trying to be miserable. (and now i sound just like my mother when i was a teen- it does go full circle!)
@Feeling
that's a good point,I didn't even think of that possibility.
reading this note in that context changes it completely.
that very well could be the context behind this find.
but personally I'm still leaning towards it simply being random philosophical musings jotted down at lunch on the only available piece of paper
p.s. like other people have pointed out, I too wonder what's on the other side of this note, it looks like writing in the same pen handwriting
@Librarian--I love what a wordsmith you are! My mother and I do something very similar at least once a week. We hear a word and play around with different rhyming schemes or similar-sounding words. We did it just this past weekend with the word "flickie". It's not a real word--it came from a video game, but think of all the funny (and dirty) combinations we came up with! Good times....
I agree with stardust.
This reminds me of a Magnetic Fields song - 'I Don't Want to Get Over You.'
"I could make a career of being blue--I could dress
in black and read Camus..."
Kind of like how I feel about Mona.
No coffee spewing out my nose with this one...
@ Baby Basil: Very good points. Value is placed on human life only if there is a profit to be made (excellent example of the sex trade industry).
Time to check out the other find of the day...
Was this customer just sitting alone, writing down what the voices in his/her head were saying? Or was this person taking notes while having a deep, profound conversation with a date (after consuming some adult beverages)?
What kind of restaurant is this (Denny's)?
"If anything I think American Culture 'memorializes' too much. . . how many benches in the park really need to be dedicated to someone ?"....or how many crosses on the side on the road (decorated with fake flowers) are necessary??
"Only by valuing life can we cultivate true compassion"
Very true. Can I have that made into a bumper sticker?
@Lolita: Yes, you may if you can. Not quite as catchy as my other slogan, "Put the human back in being" but help yourself. To both.
And to all my fellow Found-hounds, thank you. Made my day to know others don't think I'm dead from the neck up. I do my best even tho the herb garden is wilting in 45ºC temps.
Great handwriting; great weed (cause how else would you come up with all this nonsense that sounds profound in your head and asinine when you try to explain it to others)
This is lame. Just because the note writer can't accept sentient things die (though a living thing doesn't have to be sentient to die), doesn't mean that nobody else can.
I don't think that grief is about sentimentality at all. Not that I am an expert on grief. Survival of a species depends on the drive to protect and preserve itself. If not it would just fade away.
Maybe I'm wrong though. Next time I see an elephant or a whale on tv grieving over over their lost, I'm going to be sure to remind myself that elephants and whales are just way too sentimental.
Sounds like someone just discovered that people die. I will resist any temptation there is to make fun of this person. That just would not be fair as most likely the writer of this note was a teenager and probably had just recently undergone the first death of someone he or she was close to. Almost everyone has this experience of realizing that life is not always pretty or that it continues forever. A tough idea to wrap your head around when you are young and you instinctively feel you will never die.
I must disagree with the line, "The problem is that people are too (sic) sentimental, they grieve too (sic) much." This is of course not the problem. Grief is a natural and very helpful process that allows us to express our feelings and to move through them to a place where we can continue our lives without the one we loved. Without doing so we would be stuck in a Mobious Strip of emotion that would never end. Our lives wouldn't move forward, our grief would not end;and the hurting pit of loss would probably kill us.
Sentimentality is not the problem. Sentimentality allows humans to form meaningful connections. To feel love and affection for others and to receive love and affection from others. We need these relationships to ease the burden of being alive, to help us when we need help and to support us when we fall. We need them to form sexual bonds, for the pleasure that gives and to reproduce the species. We need them literally to survive.
If this need wasn't so great, then would any of us who regularly visit this board pay any attention to the others who come here? Would we banter back and forth? Play games with each other and with words in order to receive attention and a response? Would we care what anyone thought of us? I think not. The fact that some of us do these things, with people who's real name and location we do not know. (As well as a million other things we don't know about each other.) Speaks volumes to how important connecting with others is to the human race.
That's Mobius Strip. *Blushes* Sorry can't do the umlaut over the O.
Not to get all pedantic while y'all are being philosophical... okay, yeah, I'm gonna get pedantic while y'all are being philosophical. (I'm tired and philosophy makes my head swim.) Smallbear, why'd you (sic) the "too"s? They're correct.
(Aren't they? I am very tired and my head is very spinny, but I'm just *certain* that they're correct...)
smallbear, what's with the (sic)s on the toos? They're used correctly.
but you could (sic) the "who's" in the last paragraph of your own post... heh
(Hey kids! Don't stay up all night and then try to stay up all the next day! It makes you an insufferable a$$! Like me!)
blargh! I am ded.
Opps all you nitpickers are correct. Too is used corredtly. (sic)
This is one of the more depressing things I have read recently....depressing 'cause it's true. :(
Dear Gorgon,
Then this one's for you.
http://foundmagazine.com/find/214
We shall grieve your passing accordingly. Not too (sic) briefly, not too (sic) long.
I'm feeling too (sic) right now to write another comment.
When I was in junior high or so - and probably reading above my comprehension level - I would come across a [sic] every now and then. I understood it to usually mean something like "this spelling is sick". So, I sort of got the point, some of the time.
Deo gratias, I later had the chance to learn a little Latin (id est, ...studiabam parva Latina [sic]).
pting Alan,
thanks, you made this "emo"ing girl laugh today!
SAVE THE HUMANS!
When I die, I hope no one mourns. I don't want the people that care about me to be deeply upset or in pain. I think wanting to be mourned is kinda... selfish...
Geez, What are they serving in that restaurant?
friendship soup
I thought the last paragraph was a non sequitur until i thought about it in the light of what I have been reading about Tao/Zen.
Travel lightly, don't attach yourself to anything, convince yourself that nothing and nobody really exists, then you won't grieve or be dragged down by sentimentality.
I'm not saying that I agree, just that I now understand the thinking.
I wonder who 'they' are (who 'can't ex/ac/cept' that everything dies). My first thought was pet owners, in the light of the news story about the lady who has had multiple clones made of her pit bull terrier (aargghh! ONE pit bull terrier is one too many!)...
Official Statement from Smallbear's cave.
It seems obvious (sic)to this office (sic) that someone has let the Nitpicking trolls out(sic) sometime in the (sic) last (sic) forty-eight hours. (sic)They have been harASSing (sic) the internet persona (sic) knbown(sic) and mostly loved by Foundians (sic) everywhere, as Smallbear.(sic) The attacks have been on S.B's only-in-fun 'relationship' with the internet persona(sick) known and loved as (sic) Mona Lisa in the Louvre(sic) and on S.B.'s grammar. (sic) Why these attacks have occurred are unknown(sic) snd (sic) speculation has run wild in this office. Are they aliens (sic) who do not understand the whole idea of 'kidding around'? Do they not understand the idea of a 'joke' and 'having fun'? Do they not understand that Smallbear is a humanoid type bear and therefore is prone to making mistakes, especially in the chaotic world of the English (sic) language(sic)? Do they just not have anything interesting or substanal(sic) to say in response to Smallbear's comments? This office is sure it does not (sic) know the anwsers(sic) to these questions. We leave it to the Nitpicking Trolls to answer, but seriously doubt they will get the joke.
Regganald(sic)T.Bare(sic)
Smallbear, don't worry--be happy.
I'd be more inclined to take this seriously if s/he'd closed the dash.
"The sad reality that everyone — everything sentient for that matter, dies."
Ditch the comma, close the dash.
Also, put a verb in there somewhere.
@Terrie just showing the trolls my claws.:->
@ pondering Jonathon-
I struggle to understand the Zen/Tao non attachment idea, but I still think we need love and/or concern for the world. I don't think we are supposed to not care- but maybe non attachment is for those things that really don't matter in the long run- but there's the heart of the matter- does anything matter in the long run?
I highly recommend the "Tao of Pooh." Even if the ideal is "a perfect state of non attachment ...striven for and claimed as fact,"(name that song) the Tao of Pooh's approach is much happier, as compared to this despairing note.
@Terrie-Is-So-Very
just had to say, your reply to Megs question cracked me
oh i wish i had been around on this day to respond properly. I love your note, s.bear. love love love it (sic) i love that you're a humanoid type bear. those are the best kinds. Way to sock it to the aliens.
alan... .... omg .. . you rock. you truly do
jonathan - i totally get the zen thing. not that i agree.. i think attachments are ok.
If there's no value to life, people won't have to steal it; they'll be too busy throwing it away.
Hey diving - I'm full of myself for pointing out that the writer directly contradicts himself? He's trying to sound deep but he's trying so hard he doesn't even notice that he's saying one thing but give evidence to the opposite.
I think you've been diving into puddles
I agree with Oh Em Gee - which restaurant in Dillon makes a difference. The Klondike? The Sweetwater? Papa T's?
Thanks Moana! (sic)
Are Papa T's and the Klondike still in operation? What about SKEETS!!? (I know.. gone. Same with the Truck Inn. but it's "new and improved, right?) Oh.. Oh! The Metlen! (is there still a cafe there?) (never heard of the Sweetwater. But then again I haven't been back there in over 20 years.)
The back says something about "...if you were at Wood Stock, you would know...". Obviously not a dinner order. I wish I could read more.
on the reverse, there's also something about skin cream. Seriously. (no offense, Lara, but at first I thought, "woodstock... yeah. Riiight... but it really DOES say that.)
M'thew said, "I remember that someone named Siddharta Gautama said just that. So, not a very original thought."
Is it *not* okay for a soul-seeking young person from Montana to read Siddharta, and maybe take notes, or put the concepts into their own words, in order to better absorb the lessons?
(or any other book, for that matter.)
Is the quote or the concept actually from Siddharta? (read it so long ago.. can't remember. I think my copy's long lost.)
Did a Apple or one of her co-workers pen this Find?
smallbear, I don't think all those (sic) posts were meant as a personal attack on you. they were kinda funny.
What does (sic) mean? I have always wondered, but have been afraid to ask.
Even though I don't really know what it (sic) means, I find Smallbear's rant to be very very funny.
Thanks Clover!
Here's what [sic] means according to answers.com:
Sic- Latin, meaning in such manner so;thus.
A misspelled word in a quotation followed by [sic] indicates that the error appeared in the original source.
According to this web page you are supposed to type square brackets when using [sic], which I did not know obviously. :)
Whatever happened to showing both sides of double-sided Finds? This one obviously started on the obverse. As did the one about the escort agency. Why don't we rate all the information?
I hope the Admin gets back from vacation someday and Found becomes its old, versatile self again. But at least they've stopped with the recycled postings.
Chicken Kitchen