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Edith Piaf had rien de whatifs.
Image courtesy of anddreamscapes.
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There is a Spanish saying: A palabras necias, oídos sordos, literally: stupid words should fall on deaf ears. I'd like to take that up a level and introduce the following idea: stupid words deserve stupid questions. Below is the stupid question I propose, but first some context.
Recently I was listening to a BBC Radio 4 Arts programme and one of the interviewees came out with the philosophical gem: "I didn't want to live a life full of 'What ifs?'"
At first sight, this sounds like quite a good philosophy, but it does indeed beg the (stupid) question: "OK, that's fine and dandy, but what if you hadn't taken that decision?
The remark "I didn't want to live a life full of 'What ifs?'" is rather silly and shows that the speaker is perhaps a poseur trying to give a good impression of him/herself but has merely succeeded in showing that s/he hasn't thought the matter through.
ReplyDeleteAs we go through life, we are continually presented with mutually exclusive choices. For example "How shall I go to work today, by bus, by tube or on foot?" Your choice of one rejects all the others and therefore creates the question "What if I had chosen one of the others?" Life is inevitably full of such what-ifs.
For example, when a helicopter crashed into a tower crane in London recently, killing the pilot and a person on the ground, the crane driver was saved by the fact that he had not gone to work that day. I am sure he has many time since asked himself the question "What if...?"