Facts about the past and present are either true or false. Can knowledge of the future offer the same degree of certainty?
That’s what I would say this whole thing has done for me — given me gratitude for all the things around me. And I’m definitely more at peace. We all get our heads down in the day-to-day routine. I try hard to catch myself when I notice it happening. I’m not particularly religious. So I don’t like to say, “Each day is a gift,” since it implies it’s a gift from a higher power. I prefer to tell people to “cherish each day.”
I know it’s a cliché, but tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. I know that firsthand.
The oddness in “Apostrophes, explained” was German Lopez’s defensive worry that his well-meant prescriptions would seem so out of place, perhaps even so authoritarian, as to cause offense. The oddness in “Stop. Using. Periods. Period.” is quite opposite. Despite its good cheer, it’s remarkably aggressive. It turns a description of part of English into a prescription for all of it. I suspect that, like Lopez, Guo is a true believer. Lopez believes in conventions, though he fears for them. Guo believes in dismissing conventions — and, it seems, in being on the right side of history.
Then there was the time
I tried to learn to swim
in a deep lake,
but once in,
shot straight
to the floor,
out of sight, out of mind