b/c i never thought i'd write a post about cheese
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." -Niels Bohr
You know how there are so many different kinds of cheese? There's your basic cheese, the everyday sort - American and cheddar, maybe. Then you've got your feel-good, slightly fancier cheese - Swiss and provolone, maybe bleu or Parmesan. And of course, closer to the top of the cheese ladder are strange things like Brie or Gouda or things I haven't heard of. The things you put in a fondue to feel uber-fancy with your two-buck-Chuck. Anyway, it seems to me (in my uncultured and tasteless opinion) that cheese just seems to get smellier and gooier and generally grosser as you go up the ladder - but in the eyes of the connoisseur, the stranger cheeses might more truly be considered "genuine cheese" - whereas a large part of the population regards American cheese to be "fake cheese." Put your argument down, friend, and read on.
I've got an entirely unrelated metaphor to present to you in due time, but first I'd like to discuss another kind of cheese: that which people use when they say something ridiculous or sickly sweet or smile super big for little reason and then say, "That was so cheesy." But just as eating cheeses are found on a scale of not-so-cheese to quite-so-cheese, this metaphorical cheese varies in amounts of true cheesiness.
Most metaphorical cheese, when referred to, is genuine, gooey, sticky, stinky, true cheese. It's thick, unashamed, cliched enthusiasm. It does not bother hiding under any other guise except that which it is: cheese in all its gross glory. A level down from that you may find ideas or quips that looks like cheese, smell like cheese, and probably are cheese. Those cheesy grins in random photographs, harmless quotations that invoke the mildly embarrassed, "That was too cheesy." These are your holey Swisses and grated Parmesans.
Finally, there's things that the oblivious may regard as cheese, but cannot truly be called cheese - think the strange orange powder that graces Cheetos or cheese puffs of many kinds, or those Kraft American singles. However - whereas these food-cheeses try very hard to disguise themselves as cheese - the metaphorical-cheeses are only ever accidentally mistaken for cheese. The speaker wasn't trying to be insincere, but the words they used are only ever utilized in conversation to be witty and thoughtless; heaven forbid anyone try to be sincere with those. Yet, this they do, and it's not quite cheesy, because the thought that unfolds from the proposed words is in fact usable - in the same way that American or fake powdery cheese aren't really cheese, but are perhaps most often eaten and enjoyed in everyday circumstances.
tl;dr: Listen well. Get to know people and appreciate their intentions before judging their words, and don't be afraid to say truths even if they sound like cheese at first listen.
You know how there are so many different kinds of cheese? There's your basic cheese, the everyday sort - American and cheddar, maybe. Then you've got your feel-good, slightly fancier cheese - Swiss and provolone, maybe bleu or Parmesan. And of course, closer to the top of the cheese ladder are strange things like Brie or Gouda or things I haven't heard of. The things you put in a fondue to feel uber-fancy with your two-buck-Chuck. Anyway, it seems to me (in my uncultured and tasteless opinion) that cheese just seems to get smellier and gooier and generally grosser as you go up the ladder - but in the eyes of the connoisseur, the stranger cheeses might more truly be considered "genuine cheese" - whereas a large part of the population regards American cheese to be "fake cheese." Put your argument down, friend, and read on.
I've got an entirely unrelated metaphor to present to you in due time, but first I'd like to discuss another kind of cheese: that which people use when they say something ridiculous or sickly sweet or smile super big for little reason and then say, "That was so cheesy." But just as eating cheeses are found on a scale of not-so-cheese to quite-so-cheese, this metaphorical cheese varies in amounts of true cheesiness.
Most metaphorical cheese, when referred to, is genuine, gooey, sticky, stinky, true cheese. It's thick, unashamed, cliched enthusiasm. It does not bother hiding under any other guise except that which it is: cheese in all its gross glory. A level down from that you may find ideas or quips that looks like cheese, smell like cheese, and probably are cheese. Those cheesy grins in random photographs, harmless quotations that invoke the mildly embarrassed, "That was too cheesy." These are your holey Swisses and grated Parmesans.
Finally, there's things that the oblivious may regard as cheese, but cannot truly be called cheese - think the strange orange powder that graces Cheetos or cheese puffs of many kinds, or those Kraft American singles. However - whereas these food-cheeses try very hard to disguise themselves as cheese - the metaphorical-cheeses are only ever accidentally mistaken for cheese. The speaker wasn't trying to be insincere, but the words they used are only ever utilized in conversation to be witty and thoughtless; heaven forbid anyone try to be sincere with those. Yet, this they do, and it's not quite cheesy, because the thought that unfolds from the proposed words is in fact usable - in the same way that American or fake powdery cheese aren't really cheese, but are perhaps most often eaten and enjoyed in everyday circumstances.
tl;dr: Listen well. Get to know people and appreciate their intentions before judging their words, and don't be afraid to say truths even if they sound like cheese at first listen.
I wonder what President Andrew Jackson might have to say about cheese...
ReplyDelete"The story about the cheese actually happened at the end of Jackson’s eight years in office. The president was given a 1,400-pound cheese wheel as a gift, and it sat in the White House for several years. Finally, Jackson allowed the public into the East Room to eat the cheese, which it consumed over several days in 1837. The odors lingered for days after the event."
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/03/the-story-of-the-wildest-party-in-white-house-history/