Benightedness

There’s a myriad of things I don’t understand. Matter of fact, they’d make a rather long book.

Rugby. Channel-surfing, I happened upon a World Rugby Women's Sevens Series match. Watching the football-without-equipment knockabout was interesting, but I didn’t (don’t) have a clue about the rules governing play. Obviously, each team was trying to get a chubby, oversize, white football across a goal line, but strategy, penalties, and regulations eluded me. Something called a scrum (heads down; bums up; looking for something in the grass) happened now and them, but the why excludes me. Maybe someday when I’ve nothing else to do I’ll look up the rules.

NFTs. I learned that it stands for non-fungible token. I don’t even know what fungible means. The almighty internet informed me that at a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin, but its blockchain also supports these NFTs, which store extra information that makes them work differently from, say, an ETH coin. Well, thank you very much. Please pass the Ben Franklins.

Risk. A certain amount of risk provides life with some pizzaz. Certain types of risk raise the likelihood-of-death factor from possible to probable. For instance: free solo rock climbing (Marc-André Leclerc, one of the world’s best, died climbing at age 26); playing with king cobras (deaths from bites not uncommon); jumping out of an airplane without a parachute (in 2016 skydiver Luke Aikins made history when he jumped from 25,000 feet out of an airplane without a parachute, landing safely in a net, setting a world record. He also set a world record for stupidity) . . . to name a few.

Greed. Why does a billionaire feel the need for more? More money and/or more superfluous toys. Or why doesn’t a multi-billionaire use all that extra wealth to help people who are barely surviving? If a billionaire gives away a million a year (how generous!), that still leaves one with 999 million for oneself. If someone who garners a billion annually gives away half of it, that still leaves one with 500 million for oneself. You’ll never convince me that anyone needs that much. Or has a right to that much.

Fried tarantulas. In Southeast Asia these are served as a deep-fried snack. I don’t want to take away this gastronomical pleasure from those for whom this might be the case, but I do not understand it. I don’t care how hungry I am or how good they might taste, I will munch on grass before chowing down on these big spiders. I understand that some people do, but I don’t understand why.

There you have it . . . a short list of five out of the five hundred (at least) things that confuse me. Perhaps if someday I gain understanding, you’ll find me munching spiders halfway up the side of El Capitan.