We, as a civilisation, love lists. Ever since mankind started rating stuff and putting them down on a list in some subjectively perceived order of preference, our evolution seems to have finally slowed down. For now one needn’t strive, it is enough to look up a list and put ticks in the adjacent boxes. This way, when the man holding the scythe comes looking for your soul, you can go less grudgingly, knowing that you managed to dine at the ‘best restaurant in the world’, drink the third ‘most expensive wine’, and rode up the ‘highest mountain’ on the ‘world’s smallest donkey’.
Okay, I’ll detract that last donkey bit, it’s just cruel. On the donkey, that is. But it certainly feels fulfilled a life once we’ve worked our way through the list of ‘Ten things to do/eat/scratch before you die’. Never mind that it was somebody else’s (bucket) list, that we’ve adopted. As mankind enters its second millennium in the tech era, we are all, quite literally, living the life of (a certain) Riley!
Lists help in another way; you now no longer need to visit a place, just read up a bit and prattle it off at the next soirée to sound oh-so-savant. We can now know of everything but know nothing. The age of ignorance has never been more rife.
Since this is an addiction and I purvey all dependencies, here are a few lists that I would like to see drawn up, for the larger good but also to rest my curiosity. These are quotidian niggles, things that we would love to either understand more deeply or else circumnavigate in a manner that doesn’t show us up for the imbecilic idiots we really are.
1. Top alibis which justify killing someone brutally in public. I nominate using hashtags excessively as one valid reason.
2. Tips to sound learned without using jargon-crutches, like ‘impressionism’, ‘Picasso’, ‘Angelou’ or ‘Murakami’.
3. Five things to talk about to rich people which don’t circle around European vacations, garden ornaments, pool furniture, or the general ungraciousness of slaves.
4. Top 10 things to say to calm down an irate woman. Make that top five. Or just one.
5. The two ways the word ‘Mercedes’ can be pronounced without giving away your inner Punjabi.
6. The best adjectives to make vegetarian food sound appealing. Good luck with whoever attempts this.
7. Fifty English words that are a profanity in another language.
8. Top 20 spas in the world with the happiest endings.
9. Five laws you can break in most countries without risking a cavity search.
10. The top websites that are absolute rubbish at making lists of top things. This would be an ode to Russell’s Paradox. Suicidal folk may find this to be a reassuringly good reason to go ahead with whatever they were planning. Consider this a forum to share forth. Nobody is judging, so don’t hold back.
This column is for anyone who gives an existential toss
