Category: Platypus people

The introduction of the platypus was such a shock to the British scientific community, in the early 1900’s, that they considered the monotreme an elaborate, well-conceived hoax. They thought they had the animal kingdom all figured out. Those of us who know some platypus people empathize, for when they began to express themselves we thought they were joking. We thought we had human nature all figured out. As we learn more about them, we realize they’re not kidding, and our shock turns to intrigue, as we begin to think they might be able to teach us more about ourselves from their funhouse mirror perspective.

Anti-Anti-Consumer Art

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I may be in the minority, but I prefer the work of angry, bitter artists who are unable or unwilling to adjust to cultural norms. If I deign to offer an artist my bourgeoisie, Skittle-eating, domestic beer-drinking, and modern TV–watching opinion on their artistic creation, and they don’t hit me with a red-faced, spittle-flying, “Your opinions are excrement!” rebuttal, I might begin to question if they have the artistic temperament I require of those who lack any other means of venting their rage on the world than through artistic creation.

If I am to view their art in a serious manner, they had better view me as a symbolic substitute for the America-loving, God-fearing, football fan of a father they had, the man who ruined everything they held dear in their youth. I want them to view me as a symbolic substitute for the art critic who deigned to call their work pedestrian, the fellow artist who told them, “You’ll never make it in the art world,” or the art teacher who advised, “You might want to seriously consider changing your major to economics.”

The path to artistic purity is different for every artist, of course, but for most true artists, the primary motivation is not to create pieces consumers enjoy. For the great majority, the struggle of artistic expression is to locate and expound upon their individualistic interpretation of nouns (people, places, and things). While the idea that others may share a love for their interpretations might be exciting and fulfilling, it is not why they feel the need to express themselves. Outside adulation is of secondary concern to them, but it is also gravy. Some, however, create complicated pieces of literature or other forms of art for the expressed purpose of airing their complications. For these artists, the loathing they harbor for the common man’s opinion is so complete that they’re often looking at something else before we can complete our second sentence. Even authors of bestsellers, writing for the sole purpose of writing a bestseller, will argue until they bleed that their intention was not to create something consumers love. “I just happened to accomplish that,” they might argue, as if popularity was an inadvertent side effect of the quality of their creation. No matter how much we might disagree, we really can’t blame them for if they state that they intended to create a product of mass appeal, few would consider them serious artists.

If a starving artist declares how much they love their fans in their artistic statement and they’re hoping to one day see their art exhibited in a New York City gallery, they may do well to avoid the heartache, and headaches, and just consider another profession. If they have that mindset, it might behoove them to try out for the Atlanta Falcons instead. The chances are probably better that they’ll make that team than any team of artists considered for an exhibit in a New York City art gallery. A true artist can say they value input from those who have experienced their work, but they must word these critiques in such a manner that adamantly avoids any form of fan appreciation.

The best chance an artist has for achieving a spot in a prestigious gallery is to condemn everything purported by the consumer standing before them. Their best bet, in fact, is to find an artistic method of denouncing everything everyone believes in, to generate and work from an anti-consumer theme.

The anti-consumer theme has a timeless quality about it, one that goes to the heart of the artist. Its provocative nature does not yield to pop culture winds. It is anti-pop culture and a hot ticket in any era that appreciates its artists.

Little old ladies, in a blatant attempt to appear young and hip, will walk up to an artist in these galleries and try to find some way to tell the artist they find the most disturbing pieces in their portfolio, “Wonderful”, “Amazing”, and “Wonderful and amazing!”

“You are so not my demographic,” a true artist of an anti-consumer piece of art might say in the wake of such comments coming from a little, old lady. A vehement rejection of this sort could enshrine the artist in the word-of-mouth halls of the art world, and their opportunity for such prestige might increase if they added some sort of exclamation to that rejection, such as a healthy stream of spittle dropped on the little old lady’s shoes.

Receiving a compliment from a little, old lady must put an anti-consumer artist in an awkward place. Most artists feel a reflexive warm glow rising whenever they receive a hard-earned compliment from anyone, but the non-conformist artist knows better than to concede to some display of it. The intention of their creation was to reject everything most consumers hold dear, its purpose was to disturb the little old ladies of the world, and its goal was to shake up her conformist mindset. To hear that such a woman allegedly gets the artist’s attempt to disavow and denounce her generation –the generation that the artist purports screwed us all up with their toys, and wars, and unattainable gender-specific imagery– must be vexing for the artist.

Thus, the best way to handle such a situation might be to spit on her shoes. An enterprising, young, anti-consumer artist might even want to create such a scenario in which such an opportunity will arise. They might want to use a found-footage, shaky cam method of capturing the scene for a publicity junket. The artist who pulls such a situation off might just become the talk of the town if she managed to pull it off.

“Did you hear what happened when some old bag complimented Janice on her anti-fifties piece?” other artists would say to one another. “She spit on her shoes.” If such an incident made it through the artist community grapevine, it could become part of the artist’s folklore.

Criticism from some remnant of the 1950’s would be the next-best reaction for the angst-ridden, bitter, angry, anti-conformist artist. “Good, it was meant to unsettle you,” the artist could say. “Its purpose was to cause you to reexamine all the harm your generation has caused us.”

If the patron is not of the fifties generation and they deign to criticize anti-consumer art, they might want to consider the idea that they might be part of the problem. The artist might instruct them to venture outdoors more often to find out what’s going on in the world, or they may want reexamine the full scope of the artist’s narrative. The sociopolitical theme of anti-consumerism invites and hopes to incite criticism, because it is immune to most criticism by its very nature. If that were true, why wouldn’t a curator want their gallery lined with anti-consumer pieces?

The anti-consumer artist doesn’t have to worry about using current products in their projects either, for an anti-consumer artist can employ whatever consumer-related products are necessary to denounce the ethos of an era. A pro-consumer piece does not have such allowances, for to try to create an artistic expression that professes an enjoyment of Superman cereal, the consumer must have some experience with Superman cereal, in order to relate to the theme. That piece will likely evoke little more than some elements of quaint nostalgia. If the artist is unwilling to include some underlying, angst-ridden subtext regarding all the ways in which eating Superman cereal created unrealistic expectations in the patron’s mind and thus messed up that patron’s childhood the artist can be sure the piece will not fetch the kind of price that a bitter, condemnation of being forced to ingest the cereal (and thus the ideals of Superman as well), will.

Is there a sliding scale on anti-consumerist statements? I’m sure many anti-consumer artists would love to know it. If their piece contains subtle, sophisticated irony in its anti-consumer theme, with an ironic twist, what kind of return can they expect for their time? Are vehement declarations of such themes more profitable? Does the price point increase in conjunction with bullet-point adherence to the sociopolitical, anti-consumer theme?

The amount of anti-consumer art for sale in a gallery can be overwhelming, for this has become the most consumer-related, rebellious, radical theme for starving artists to pursue. In fact, “What are you waiting for?” might be the question that fellow artists and curators have for those who hold out. They might even inform the holdouts that anti-consumer art has become the safest theme to explore for any artist that wants to have their work exhibited.

Curators don’t have to worry about fads or trends in the art world, for the very idea of fads and trends violate the anti-consumer artist’s tenets. All a curator has to do is rotate collections of anti-consumer art year round, and their gallery can exist in the radical, counterculture milieu 365 days a year.

How long have anti-consumer pieces held primo spots in top galleries around the nation? One would think the ubiquity of this anti-consumer theme in art galleries would invite a rebellion that would expose it as the market force it purports to detest. It would take a rebel willing to expose the counterculture in their work, regardless of how it affects their pocketbook, because the current art world would not view their work favorably.

As such, framing the concept of their piece would provide an obstacle for the rebel. The rebel would have to word their artistic statement carefully, for it would be career suicide to have their anti-anti-consumer art confused with pro-consumer art.

Grimace-e1414637657704
“Eat at McDonald’s”

“It says ‘Eat at McDonald’s,’” a curator might say with absolute disgust.

“Right on,” the anti-anti-consumer artist would reply. “It’s my attempt to highlight the stereotypical art of anti-consumerism. My portrayal of the McDonaldland character Grimace is used as a vehicle for the larger idea through which I attempt to explore the tendency our counterculture has to use social media and propaganda to prescribe narrow, contrived definitions of art to individuals and the nation.”

The hip, avant-garde patrons of an art gallery would be prone to view the anti-anti-consumer artist’s piece as a stab at consumerism that contains sophisticated irony. They might consider it quaint, hilarious, and an incredible salvo sent to consumers around the world, the people who really don’t get it.

If this anti-anti-consumer artist was available for a Q&A session, and the artist made the mistake of imploring their artistic friends to accept their anti-anti-consumer theme for what it is, the hip, avant-garde smiles would likely flatten. Some might consider the piece obnoxious, and they might even consider the anti-anti-consumer artist a whore for corporate America.

“I just want to celebrate the history and tradition of the McDonaldland character Grimace,” the anti-anti-consumer artist’s intro would be. “My painting is an effort to explore all the joy and happiness Grimace has brought to so many lives.”

“Is that sophisticated irony?” the patrons would ask.

“No. It’s an anti-anti-consumer theme that I am attempting to explore here.”

“So it’s … a pro-consumer statement?” one of the more obnoxious patrons might say to intrude upon the artist’s pitch.

“Good God, no!” the artist must respond, if they hope to generate the amount of interest that might result in a sale.

If the anti-anti-consumer artist has the artistic temperament of one who doesn’t care about the sale, however, and they’re able to maintain focus on the artistic theme, they might have to engage in a substantial back-and-forth with the patrons of their piece before they conclude that the artist isn’t putting them on or being obnoxious.

As stated earlier, being obnoxious in an anti-consumer theme is not just acceptable it’s expected. Stubbornly pursuing an anti-anti-consumer stance, however, will cause others to deem the artist obnoxious and pro-consumer.

Thus, attracting patrons to the anti-anti-consumer exhibit would not even represent the beginning of the artist’s problems, as no self-respecting curator would deign to display their work. I’m guessing most curators aren’t bad people, and they might even have some sympathy for this anti-anti-consumer artist’s frustrations. If the curator’s knowledge of the industry was such that they knew enough about it to be objective, they would probably sit the artist down to inform them of the inner workings of the industry.

“I know you are a passionate artist,” the curator might say, “but you really should reconsider this whole anti-anti-consumer theme. I know you built it to counter the counter, but you should know that this will not play well over the long haul. If you want serious cachet in the art world, there are two genres to consider. These genres include art built on an anti-consumerism theme and the anti-consumer works that are vehement in their theme. I suggest you drop this whole anti-anti-consumer artistic statement and make it known that your work contains a subtle, sophisticated irony with an anti-consumer twist, if you ever hope to sell anything.”

If the anti-anti-consumer artist somehow managed to achieve some degree of success with their theme, they would likely become the scourge of the art world. At some point, fellow artists would also approach the artist, as a coalition of condemnation for the audacity of the anti-anti-consumer theme. “You’re ruining this for all of us. Why would you do this to us? What do you think you’re doing?”

The anti-anti-consumer artist should look them in the eye and ask, “Is that subtle, sophisticated irony?”

Are You Superior? II

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“Hey, how you doing?” a couple of bandannas, beneath hats turned backwards, and sunglasses asked after pulling their truck over in a neighborhood to talk to me. 

I’d love to tell you that when I braced for the worst, it had nothing to do with their appearance, but that would be a lie. When a couple of young fellas, who were my age at the time, if not slightly older, approached my van with their hats turned backwards, over bandanas, I imagined the encounter a modern-day equivalent of bandits pulling over a stagecoach. I tried to put that over-informed stereotype behind me, and I tried to maintain the belief that they were just customers.

“I’m great,” I said as genuinely as I could. “How can I help you?” I was the ice cream man, the ding ding man, the good humor man, or whatever you call the ice cream van driver in your locale, and they were presumably customers. 

“Do you have a screwball?” one of them asked. I said we did and pointed to the display on the side of the truck for their verification and pricing needs. “I used to love the screwball, with not one but two gum balls at the bottom,” he added

“Not one of my best sellers,” I said to stoke conversation, “but I agree with you. I used to love them too.”

“The Choco Taco,” the other said, as if that’s all he needed to say, and they both swooned with sarcastically romantic smiles.

This brief conversation evolved into other, casual conversations about the business end of selling ice cream products in a van, my compensation, and other such nonsense that lowered my guard. The moment after I felt my initial suspicions subside, I reinforced them, thinking that the only reason they stopped me “just to talk” was to allow their stickup man enough time to sneak around the back of my ice cream truck to complete the heist. I divided my attention between them and my mirrors as a result, watching for any movement behind the van. This hyper-vigilance was the product of the cynical, conspiracy theory guys who lived on the opposite side of street of my sheltered existence. They coached me in the belief that most people are not good until we discover otherwise. “It’s quite the opposite,” my cynical friends informed me, “Quite the opposite.”  

“You guys don’t believe in anything,” I said. “You don’t see anything wrong with that?”

“There might be,” those cynics conceded, “but I will tell you this, two seconds after you lower your defense shield, we gotcha!” They got to me, over time, and in numerous discussions of scenarios and real-life, told-you-so instances, they inched my inches until I saw these two hats turned backwards, over bandanas, as sharks circling, studying my strengths and weaknesses, waiting to see if they could get hurt, seeking points of vulnerability, until they spotted a gotcha moment.    

When I saw no movement around my van, I began to wonder if they were feeling me out, to gauge if I was an easy roll for a future heist. All of this may have been unfair, based almost solely on superficial appearance, but I could find no reason why they would want to stop their truck in the middle of a neighborhood street “just to talk” to someone like me.

I never understood the subtle differences and wide divides between the worlds of cool and nerddom, “And you probably never will,” more than one observer has informed me. In the company of these two bandit looking fellas, it was pretty obvious that I was on the outside looking in. They wore it so well too. They were so calm. Everything they did was so calm. They appeared so comfortable with who they were that I thought of the term radiating self-possession that students who paid far more attention in literature class knew and used. Those two also spoke in an ethereal tone that suggested they were probably potheads, and as one attuned to pop culture references, and pop culture characterizations, I knew that meant that they were way cooler than me. If all of this was true, I thought, and they were thieves, and I was the modern day equivalent to the aproned shopkeeper of the ice cream van, their comparative cool points were through the roof.

We view the world from the inside looking out, of course, but according to my metrics, I should’ve been their superior. I wore better clothes, and I figured I had a better education, but these guys had intangibles that I couldn’t even imagine attaining. They had a look about them, a strong sense of cool, and an aura that suggested that they were just fun loving, party-going types. Such characteristics threw my metrics right out the window. They weren’t stupid, however, and that fact was evident minutes into our conversation.

They asked me questions about how I was compensated. That, in and of itself, is not an informed question of course, but it was the way they asked those questions. It was a feel that cannot be explained that suggested their leading questions were such that they knew more about the business side of life than the average bandanna, beneath hats turned backwards, and sunglasses dude. I gauged their questions appropriately, but I maintained that there was no way their education was as expensive as mine. Plus, I thought, If they were potheads, they probably spent a lot of time equivocating moral issues, and those who equivocate –my Catholic school educators informed me– have fundamental flaws about them that they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to overcome and hide. In my world of proper metrics, I thought I was, check, check, check, superior.

Except for one tiny, little nugget, I conveniently neglected to input into the equation: on this particular day I was also wearing sunglasses and a bandanna beneath my backwards facing hat. The only difference between the three of us was that I didn’t wear this ensemble on a day-to-day basis. I wore it for the sole purpose of concealing my true identity. I was so embarrassed to be a ding ding man that short of wearing a fake beard and a Groucho Marx nose and eyeglasses, I had every inch of my identity concealed from the public.

They didn’t know any of that of course. They probably thought I was a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat brutha, and that may have been the primary reason they decided to stop and chat with me in the first place. It may have been the reason they were so relaxed about their status, and my status, and the superior versus inferior dynamic influencing our approach to one another. Within the internal struggle I experienced in this interaction, was a ray of sunshine. I felt superior, because this was a get up for me. This was not my every day apparel. That moment was fleeting even while I basked in it, for I realized that if I was superior I wasn’t doing anything with it, and that fact led me to be embarrassed that I was now wearing a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat, and sunglasses. I wondered if I input that variable into the equation if it might actually make me inferior to them.

“Who is your primary customer?” the one who spoke most often asked.

“Kids of course,” I said. I then relayed a number of stories about how my trainer taught me to take advantage of the naïveté of children. “I told him that I was not going to conduct business that way, and he said, ‘You have to. That’s how you make money for your business.’ I reiterated that that wouldn’t be how I conducted business.”

They were fascinated by my stories, hanging on every word, and reacting accordingly. Fellas who feel insecure and inferior, generally tend to try to prove their intelligence by speaking so often that we don’t search for their weaknesses. These guys listened, and they listened so well that it was obvious how comfortable they were in their own skin. I watched them react, and I couldn’t believe it. I realized that when we tally points for determining who is superior and inferior, we often fail to account for how comfortable people are with themselves, regardless the relative circumstances. We input data every day and in every way, calculating our strengths and weaknesses, and some of us find ways of achieving happiness within our dynamic. We’ve been led to believe that achieving vast amounts of money, power, and the resultant prestige are an endgame, and the ultimate goal, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Very few would deny wanting such things, of course, but some don’t need them for that sense of spiritual completion in the manner others do. Some of us just want enough disposable income to do something with the family on weekends, and what we do on weekends can be as fulfilling, if not more so, than that which the most successful business man achieves during the week.

These two were probably a little bit older than me, but they were still young, and as such, the opportunities for them in the future were as wide open for them as for me, but they were still much more comfortable in their current situation than I was. They learned to live with their limitations, until they were so comfortable with who they were that they were radiating self-possession. I realized that in my bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat, and sunglasses disguise, I lost so many points in this category that it would be impossible for me to recover in time.

The bandanas, with hats on backwards, and sunglasses did not wear shirts, and they were riding in a beat up, old International truck, that rattled in idle. They were construction workers with deep, dark tans that made their teeth appear whiter then they were when they smiled and laughed. My guess, watching these two twentysomethings speak, was that even though they appeared inferior, they had no trouble landing women. My guess was that among those women who knew them well, there was a whole lot of adulation going on. I didn’t know that to be a fact, of course, but guys like me –who were always on the lookout for what we missed in life– were always looking to guys like these for ideas.

They laughed a genuine laugh at some of the things I said. The matters I discussed had something to do with the business side of being a ding ding man, and how I loathed my current station in life, but I can’t remember specifics. I remember their laughter, however, and I remember wondering if they were laughing with me or at me. At this point in my life, I just escaped a high school that contained a large swath of fellas who were laughing at me. This casual conversation reminded me of those fellas I just escaped, and it revealed the shield that I erected whenever I thought one of them neared.

That takeaway didn’t strike me as a profundity in the moment. It crossed my mind, but I didn’t grasp the totality of what happened between us until they told me they had to leave.

“All right, we have to go grab some lunch,” the one who did most of the talking said, finally ceding to the one who had been attempting to draw the proceedings to a close at the tail end of our conversation.

“Oh, of course,” I said. “We’ll see you later then.” I tried to remain casual, but I actually wanted to keep talking to them. In the beginning, most of my participation was clipped to end the casual conversation as quick as possible to thwart their ability to find an angle on me. By the time they suggested they had to leave, I flirted with trying to come up with a conversation topic that might convince them to stay. I obviously dropped all suspicions at that point, and I actually missed them before they drove away.

As I watched them drive away, it dawned on me that the preconceived notions I had about them were based on my experiences in high school, and I thought about all of the hang-ups and insecurities that plagued me. I realized that these two were just a couple of good guys, and they appeared to think I was a pretty good guy too. I didn’t expect them to want to talk to me, but when they did, I expected them to lose interest quickly. When they didn’t, I realized I liked being the guy they thought I was. Other than appearing to be a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat brutha, I wasn’t sure what it was they thought they saw when they sidled up next to me to chat, but I liked it, and while I watched them drive away, I realized I wanted to do a retake of the whole encounter. The next time I saw them, I decided, I would enjoy our conversation from beginning to end, without any hang-ups or preconceived notions, but I never saw them again.

The idea that most people speak in superlatives was not lost on me, but most people who knew me well, at the time, said that I might have been one of the most uptight, frustrated, and angst-ridden individuals they’ve ever met, and the costume I wore that day supported that characterization more than I cared to admit. Very few of those who knew me well have ever accused me of being too relaxed.

It wasn’t until these two were long gone that I realized that my inability to put high school behind me prevented me from enjoying simple, casual conversations with some decent guys who just want to chat. I wondered how many other casual conversations I ruined on that basis. Thanks to my cynical friends teaching me the ways of the world, I learned how to play a proverbial king of the mountain game, a game I often lost in high school, and I was so locked into that defensive position that it ruined my life for years.

Is it true that we’re all searching for a point of superiority, or inferiority, in even the most casual conversations? I don’t know, and some would say no, and others would say hell no! “I’m just asking you what you think about the latest wheat and grain prices on the commodity markets.” So, why do we loathe speaking to some people? Why do we try to avoid them as often as we can, and when we can’t, our goal is to end those conversations as quick as possible. Do they make us feel incomplete and inferior? Why do we enjoy casual conversations with others we deem inferior so much more? The tricky, sticky element of this argument is that we think that in some way, shape, or form the elements of superiority and inferiority manipulate just about every conversation we have, and when we’re proven wrong in some instances, we wish we never discovered it. Now that our mind’s eye is open to this idea, we wish we could turn it off, and enjoy the fruits of casual conversations again.

If it is true that every single conversation has these elements in some form, where was I in this casual conversation with two guys who wore a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat and sunglasses? That was never established in a substantial manner, but my takeaway from this particular encounter was that for a very brief moment in my life, I didn’t care, and that might be why I enjoyed our conversation so much that I missed them as I watched them drive away.

Deserve vs. Earn

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“You just received a raise? Well, congratulations! I think you deserved it.” A co-worker, named Dawn, said after I stepped out of a one-on-one with my boss. I was so proud that I almost missed her tripping on my pet peeve.

“Well, thank you for those kind words,” I said with all sincerity, “but I didn’t deserve that raise. I earned it.” 

I don’t know if I offended Helen, but she obviously felt the need to correct my correction, “If you earned a raise, then we all did,” she said, emphasizing the word earned in the exact same way I did, in a subtle form of mockery.

“We all got a raise,” she clarified, “but it wasn’t a raise in the way you think it was. It was a bump in pay. Yeah, the feds just upped the minimum wage, so we all received a commensurate bump in pay.”

I read about the raise in the minimum wage, but I made more than the minimum wage, so I didn’t think those stories concerned me. I knew the cost of everything would rise accordingly, and I knew every dollar I had in my pocket would mean less as a result of the minimum wage hike, but I didn’t think it would affect me in any other way. I didn’t know anything about the general practice companies have of raising wages to help their employees’ keep pace with the inflation that results from raising the minimum wage.

In our one-on-one, my boss led me to believe my raise was based on merit. He never said the word raise, I realized in the aftermath of Helen’s clarification, but he said enough to allow me to fill in the blank. I was so proud of that raise that I couldn’t wait to tell my dad. It turned out this bump in pay wasn’t an amount of money I earned, but money I deserved for working in a country that decided to mandate that employers pay their employees more money.

“Why do you care whether you earned or deserved more money?” another co-worker, named Natalie later asked, “as long as you have more of it in the bank.”

Other co-workers told me to shut up in various other ways, and that I should be grateful to have a job. I tried to be that guy, as I knew the pain of being laid off, fired and unemployed. I don’t know if my state of mind had something to do with my boss delivering the news of my bump in pay under what I considered false pretenses, but I thought it had something to do with the overwhelming sense of pride I felt when I thought the company was finally recognizing all of my hard work, and how that all came crashing down when I realized I deserved it.

Earn It!

In a post-game interview, following his first 1994-1995 national championship, former Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Tom Osborne was asked if he felt he deserved the title. Tom Osborne began head coaching duties in 1974. What followed was a level of consistency almost unheard of in college football, with numerous near-misses in national championship games. No college coach, at the time, could be said to be more deserving of a national championship. No college coach worked harder, or was more effective in building a system that produced a consistent winner, at the time, than Coach Tom Osborne. Yet when he finally won his first championship, and someone asked him if he felt he deserved it, he said, “No one deserves a national championship,” I write paraphrasing Coach Osborne. “You win one in that particular season.” Without going into too much detail, every loss to the Oklahoma Sooners, every bowl game loss, and every near-miss informed Tom Osborne that he needed to adapt and change. The adaptations and changes Osborne and the Cornhusker hierarchy introduced have been listed by others, but one of the primary ones was a change in the type of players he needed to recruit to compete with the elite teams in college football. He knew no one was going to give him a National Championship because they felt sorry for him after so many near-misses. He knew he wasn’t any more deserving of a National Championship than any of the other head coaches in college football. He knew that he was going to have to change, adapt, and outwork his opponents, and he did to finish his career with three national championships and a 60-3 record over his last five seasons as Nebraska’s head coach. 

What’s the difference between the words earn and deserve? If a reader sorts through various periodicals they will find the two words used in an almost interchangeable manner. We conflate these two words so often that some of us consider them synonyms, and some thesauruses and dictionaries even list them as such.

This casual, but curious, observer of language would not go so far to write that those reference books are incorrect, but in a purely philosophical sense, I consider these words so far apart as to be antonyms. When the office worker speaks of deserving a raise she has not yet received, even those fellow employees who know the standardized measurements of the company would not bring up the word earn, fearing that doing so might taint the relationship they have with her. When a sports fan speaks of his favorite team deserving a championship, only his antagonists will mention the fact that their team hasn’t earned it yet, and when the lovelorn and politicians speak of the word deserving, it is an emotional appeal that their audience dare not counter.

Most define deserve as something for which they are entitled, as if by birthright, and earn has a more meritorious quality. They think they deserve to have something, as a result of a natural course of events. If another has, they should have. In this context, deserve takes on the definition of an adjective to describe those who should attain, and earn is more a verb to describe the justifiable reward for the hard work put into attaining a goal. Deserve is also a term used by those who feel they are owed something by being a good person, a human being who is alive, and they don’t bother defining the difference between the two as it applies to them.

All philosophical differences aside, this causal, but curious, observer can’t help but think that those who invest emotions in the idea that they are deserving, at the expense of working to earn, set themselves up for failure, heartache, and even diminished mental health when the reality of their circumstances continue to dispel such notions. One would think that, at some point, the confused would take a step back and reexamine their algorithm, but for most of us that’s easier said than done, as it could lead us to the conclusion that we’re a lot less deserving than we once believed.

LOVE

Love is difficult to calculate by standardized measurements of course, as past behaviors do not dictate future success. As such, no rational person should ever say that they deserve to be loved in a conditional manner by a prospective lover, but love is not something one can earn entirely by merit in this manner either. Conditional love, between adults, is a complicated algorithm fraught with failure that begins with simple, intangible superficialities. These superficialities can be as simple as the way a person combs their hair, their scent, the clothes they wear, the way they smile when they see you coming down the aisle at Cracker Barrel, and all of the other, otherwise meaningless intangibles that form superficial attraction.

Some could argue that the superficial nature of the early stages of love are nothing more than a crush, but a crush forms the crucial, fundamental layer of all that will arise from it. At some point, and every relationship is different, a crossover occurs. The initial spark that drove the relationship from point A to point B progresses into shared values, individualistic ideas, and some modifications on long held beliefs and philosophies, until it eventuates from that initial, superficial attraction into the ultimate, comprehensive, and conditional decisions we make about another person we call love. In this sense, we earn love every day thereafter by maintaining and managing the conditions that the other party lays out for us in overt and implicit ways to form adult, conditional love.

“Do you think you should receive love simply by being?” I would ask those who claim to deserve love. “Do you think that you should be able to walk up to a total stranger on the street and inform them that you are a good person, and therefore deserving of love, and that they should do their civic duty, as a good citizen of the world, and love you? If that’s what you believe, you’ll probably end up with the type of love you deserve.” 

The point is that those who claim they’ve achieved the quality of deserving open up a whole can of why, for those who are asked to believe it. ‘Why do I deserve,’ should be the first question we ask ourselves, and ‘why am I more deserving than another?’ should be the next, and all of the answers should culminate in self-evident facts and figures that result in the definitions of the words ‘merit’ and ‘earn’.

High-minded types who tend to overthink matters are often the first to warn the rest of us that we overthink matters. One such person told his audience that love is nothing more than a complex mixture of chemicals in the brain, and he did so under a theoretical umbrella that suggests that a human being is no more complex than a penguin. This person added that other animals, like some penguins, maintain long-term, monogamous relationships based on some decision-making. The rest of us would not say that this is outright false, but we would add that the definition of love can vary with the complex and simple variables we add to it. If we want the love we deserve to be no more complex than the penguin’s, and our drive to be loved, and love, is nothing more than a natural and primal need to procreate, then humans deserve to be loved by the primal, prospective mate who senses when we’re in heat. If our senses are inferior to the penguin’s, in the sense that we can’t tell when a prospective mate is in heat, we may want to develop a mating call that informs prospective mates when we feel ‘deserving’ of love to see what comes running down the alley to us.

Most of us prefer to believe that we earn the love we receive on a perpetual basis, a love that is much more complex than the penguins, and that the love we receive is reciprocated by the love we give. This, in financial circles, is called ROI (return on investment). Before we decide to invest our emotions in another, we try to make an informed decision of whether that person shares our values. We might make a snap decision, based on their superficialities, but this often occurs in the swoon stage. If they are going earn our love however, they are going to have to live up to our conditions long-term. If we settle on this primal, penguin definition of love, and we choose to believe that we deserve a form of love that should be nonjudgmental, and lacking in morals and values, and that which is nothing more than a stick that stirs the chemicals in our brain, the love we receive will be as meaningless as the penguins’, and what we deserve.