The British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding.
The Chinese tell time by 'The Year of the Horse' or 'The Year of the Dragon. ' I tell time by 'The Year of the Back' and 'The Year of the Elbow. ' This year it's 'The Year of the Ulnar Nerve. ' Someone once asked me if I had any physical incapacities of my own. 'Sure I do,' I said. 'One big one - Jim Palmer. '
Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second. This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.
My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.
