Daniel J. Travanti
Hey, Buddy, whata you so upset about? It’s only a joke. That means, I don’t really mean it. I don’t say what I really mean in jokes. There are jokes, and there is the truth. WRONG, mister. Do you want to know some of a person’s innermost feeling? Listen to his jokes. MY, my, well, that’s a philosophical way to look at it. Or, You certainly have a philosophical attitude about that. That’s just wonderful. This means, I know you’re devastated, but you’re shining it on, and that’s all right. You have this way of covering up what you really feel, and if that sustains you, well, Okay. There are your true feelings, then there is this ruse, this pretense, that you speak. You can be realistic, or you can be philosophical. Philosophical is not practical. Only anger, desolation, despair, consternation, catatonia, or suicide could be constructed as practical. Any reasonable response, any measured emotion, any moderation in this matter is certainly not reasonable or USEFUL. It’s being philosophical, meaning “his way of coping; by telling himself this lie.”