Life is a Popularity Contest

Yesterday, as mandated, the government released an updated food pyramid. I hadn't realized the government was required, by law, to update their august opinion on what we should be eating every five years, but that's the way it is.

For those interested, the report is as follows:"blah blah blah...fruits and vegetables...exercise...average two thousand calories a day...blah blah blah...whole grains..."

First, I have to admit that as a youngster I could never understand, nor fully trust, anyone who preferred a luscious, fresh ripe peach to a Three Musketeers candy bar. Second, I really wish the government wouldn't do this kind of thing.

For one thing, fewer than one in eight people follow the recommendations. I would hate to meet any of these people, incidentally, since I can't imagine anything dumber than following government's recommendations. I don't want a government that tells me how to eat, or that even occupies itself with making suggestions about that. It would be one thing if the Surgeon General (who, in my mind, will always be Dr. Everett C. Koop, just because he *looks* like a Surgeon General oughtta) came out and said this, but I'm certain there are thousands of employees involved in this. One person I could overlook, but agencies?

They mostly, I assume, either consider it "important" or treat it as a job and have tenure as government workers.

Whatever the proper role of government, it isn't telling me what to eat, which is pretty damn basic. I hate the notion of being a member of any group who needs or wants the government to tell us how to function. I don't want them telling me what to read, how to dress, saving me from myself, or any of that. The government, I feel, should not be actively engaged in thwarting Darwin merely for the sake of revenue.


I love paring down my work.

I received, once, what I considered to be the highest compliment: "I like the pacing."

When I write I can dawdle over minutae, inserting what I think to be glorious descriptions or scenes or passages that "expose the character," but these are mostly superfluous. The readers will (and often should) create their own realities. Not only does this involve them with the work (and, one hopes, increase their enjoyment), it also goes to something I strive for as a personal philosophy: It's not my job to tell you how to think.

When I describe a car as red, the reader has to take my assertion as fact. Yes, it may add richness to a story, but it does so at the cost of forcing the reader to see the world the way I insist. What makes a story great, or one of them, anyway, is what's left out. It's the whole Psycho shower thing.

I realize it's a specific way of writing and isn't the way everyone should write, or a way that everything must be written, but I do try to write concisely. I think it prevents boredom and also serves to draw attention to details that *are* mentioned. For me, it's primarily a matter of determining import by word count, the longer I spend on something the more important it should be. If I fail to describe someone's shoes it isn't because I don't consider them, it's just that I don't want to distract the reader by giving them any sort of importance.