Celery makes my mouth itch. Particularly after I have eaten something sweet. Could there be some kind of science to justify my experience?
Everyday I find someone has published some kind of study, that conflicts with the knowledge we thought we owned yesterday. This discovery seems to be infused of an energy akin to that of rushing metal filaments squealing toward magnets.
Perhaps the lines between the metallisation, the word, and physicality of celery are in play here. Just as my friend John said today: everyone can agree on the value of art, but the question is always about who will pay? Everyone seems to agree celery is good for our bodies, but who wants to eat it?
Chewing on celery passes the time, the kind of time needed to make another discovery eventually revealing something wrong with something that is how it’s always been. This wrong gets marketed as a fix. That’s the tidy business coaches advice: find a problem, market a solution. The thing about this approach is the solution almost always creates another problem, and the never-ending story relents until the chewing of sugary stops. I’ll take the confounded glory of the vegetable floss and let it curb the acid holes candy bars bore through my teeth.
An itch, after all serves an expression of desperation to heave out something naughty. An itch can’t be ignored unless with great meditation training. Acrobatics of the nervous system, strengthen to endure the sort of masturbatory articles celebrating the greatness of a species. Wouldn’t nature love us a bit more, if we paid her a bit more of our time, and a little less of our mind?
What’s all the excitement about the revelations we prove to ourselves? There’s this bar called Stopp Pressen, or Stop the Press, in Oslo. Which is pretty fun name and invitation to wonder what we are pressing on about.
Maybe nature would throw fewer tantrums, or maybe we would discover there are certain combinations that don’t work for anyone (celery and sugary cacao, for example?). The (written) law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. The laws of nature require no writing but continual adaptation. Instead of taking nature, understanding nature might prove far more kind.
Text adapted from a journal entry made on 26 November 2018, Oslo, Norway
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