One of my favorite sayings in response to absurd, specious logic is: “Just because you can learn something from being whacked in the face with a two-by-four doesn’t mean that you should whack someone in the face with a two-by-four.” This is often in response to the myriad of ways the world adopts punishment as a way to control people, as if this is some highly evolved living. This is particularly relevant when such punishing measures are taken with a veneer of rehabilitating or “fixing” others when wisdom gained in punishing times is typically despite the punishment, not because of it. My view is that life is punishing enough; we don’t need to add more. This poem is an ode to such punishing logic.
Whacky Wisdom
The man witnessed
Someone hit in the face
By a two-by-four
Who learned an epic lessen
Despite the lop-sided payin’
And what did the man take away
From this con sequence
And vane contusion
Some whacky wisdom
That hitting someone in the face
With a two-by-four
Such an inciteful rule
Is some kind
Of judicious notion
