On unflawful perfection and fault invention

If you don’t have enough inherent idiosyncrasies as a person, I say it is your social responsibility to invent some.

I mean, lets say you’re an outstanding guitarist. You are an impeccable master of both technical and methodological precision who tight-ropes flawlessly between soulful inspiration and musical exactitude. You run up and down arpeggios like virtual staircases, and your every performance is like a Jimmy-invoking séance.

Yes, you’re an extraordinary musician who will probably even make it into music history books and slip into the pretentious conversations of martini-drinkers at parties held by old people trying to be hip.

But…, will people like you?

No.

Because no one likes a faultless genius. No one likes a perfect neighbor, an intelligent AND beautifully-breasted coworker, or a weather man who is an actual meteorological psychic. Aside from making great paper weights, such people just serve to highlight the flaws and shortcomings of others.

So, that’s why I think it’s important for everyone (especially all the other flawless people like me in the world) to invent a few well-developed, rough-edged idiosyncrasies that can be tacked on to their personality in times of social awkwardness or peer disdain.

The kick-ass, impeccable guitarist, for example, would be wise to get himself a drug addiction of some sort and an affinity for rubbing zebra dung on his forehead and genitals during performances.

The perfect neighbor could get herself a minor personality tic like…, for example, an obsessive-compulsive need to repaint the mailbox each and every day wearing only a pair of blue clogs and a postal service hat.

Et cetera…

But, you ask, does the preacher practice what she screeches?

Why yes, in fact, I do.

In my own life, I’ve uploaded a few invented flaws and idiosyncrasies that I often use to highlight my inherent persona and keep my social peers from thinking I’m dull.

The first thing I invented was a passionate disdain for mayonnaise. I learned over many years of being asked “What foods do you like/ dislike?” that my honest answer (“I like everything. There’s not a food I can think of that I don’t like.”) was not a socially acceptable answer. Every time I tried to answer truthfully, my interrogators would INSIST that there must be a food I couldn’t stand.

Hence, I pulled mayonnaise out of my ass (…but, sorry, I didn’t film it and post it to Youtube), and now just the thought of that whipped-cum white puree gives me the inclination to sing Christmas carols with Whitney Houston and Ted Haggard.

The other personality enhancer I brewed for myself is a lovely little piece of work I call Travel Snobbery…

I figure everyone spins the globe and fantasizes about seeing the romantic shores, exotic creatures and diverse flora of distant lands unprotected by corrupt governments.., but NOT everyone can boast of a narrow-minded snobbery about the “correct” way to travel.

So…, I carefully designed (first out of toothpicks and later out of idea alone) a unique, backpacker-wiggle-your-bare-toes- down-into-the-cultural-earth-eat-cheap-stuff- from-local-markets-and-stay-in-three-walled-places-that- cost-less-than-a-bottle-of-water attitude towards travel which I have used to add spice to my public personality on many a crowd-pleasing social occasion.

And this little idiosyncratic attitude of my exoteric self says that Costa Rica is for howler monkeys and one-week tourists who wear their backpacks on their stomachs and scream when they see spiders near their food.

But… what can I say…, the ticket was cheap. So, I’m going.

...Phew!... All of these words just to say that I’m going to Costa Rica…

No…, honestly, all of the circumlocutive wordiness is just a part of my recently invented “Can’t get to the point” Flaw that I’m working on now to enhance my otherwise banal personality. Let me know how it’s coming.