For my Wise and Generous Parents, to creatures of the Blue Planet:
our rich cultures are full of ineffable ironies and perennial paradox, produce of a pulchritudinous planet.
Words in jest or not,
Teasing carves greater meaning -
Dialogue rebirths.
Teased are all by language, a self-inflicted weapon used every minute of the day in every corner of your globe.
When ferments first fired fellowship around a charred carcass the playful mock was born. Whenever since life rested upon prior efforts you poured scorn on the weak - playful if friend or with, if enemy, enmity.
As tribe tasted township, ventured village, coveted city, sought shire or statehood, knew nationhood - cravings for community consciousness contrived Coliseums of caricature, contempt, derision, farce, mockery. Whatever it took to annoy your fellows or antagonize enemies.
It is in your nature to needle.
Savor these synonyms: aggravate, annoy, badger, bother, dump on, goad, harass, jive, kibitz, pester, put down, rag on, razz, rib, ride, ridicule, roast, flame, send up, spoof, swipe, taunt, torment - and I left most of them out!
This hectoring habit was foreplay to society’s formation, fundamental to factory, faith and formulae. You made language and now cannot escape its power that sends humans hurtling to happenstance.
Language is your software. It carried you through the millennia, stored your knowledge, carries the collective consciousness and now programs machines made in your image.
Human effort fully recast - from dirt crops to data cores.
