If I make it through this day I’ll have 3 days to waste. Three days to do stuff when I should be doing other stuff. I stick with this job because I fantasize that it will lead to something, some kind of payoff. But what? This is not the kind of job where creative thinking or analytical skills are valued. In fact, I would suggest that creative thinking is virtually never valued in corporate or government work. In most contexts creative thinking is just a pain in the ass. That’s because most creative thinking is not particularly good or polished. You have to go through a lot of iterations and failures before arriving at a crystalized idea that is both new and useful. Many examples come to mind. I believe it was John Poindexter who wanted to create a betting pool on when and where the next terrorist attack would be. It would be like betting on the NFL. The idea was publicized and ridiculed and damned for its brut insensitivity and whatnot, but the real joke was on the haters. Poindexter and his thinktank had no intention of actually deploying a terrorist betting pool. It was just an idea, an idea that led to other ideas that ultimately lead to I don’t know what. But it was just fodder, cud-chewing, mental masturbation. I think the ultimate goal was to find a way to pool the minds of many into crowd-sourcing what could be crowd-sourced of knowledge and instinct among broad populations about what was cooking in the terrorist underground. But as an example of creative thinking it was lambasted and mocked, as is most creative thinking.
I am about to unpeal a Disney Stich-branded Dole banana. Someone with knowledge of bananans must have connected us to Stitch, though I, as a reasonably faithful bananan, know not what Stitch is, nor am I likely to actively research the matter.
I sat on the same bench as a ranting, shirtless man at the Times Square station last night. When he shouted “I’M GONNA TO STRANGLE YOU!” I figured it was time to stop sharing the bench with this individual. Almost certainly harmless but why risk anything… SOmetimes I have to walk to the office from City Hall, which is one full subway stop away. At 6AM there are plenty of sketchy dudes milling around the FiDi, most of them looking like they’ve been up and up and up all fucking night. I made a mistake of thinking a shortcut through Theatre Alley would be wise, but it was suddenly a very small and noxious environment when some jacked-up dude started yelling after me. The yells faded as I walked on but it still unsettled my already unsettled psyche.