Supplies

God and I have both often heard it said that the secret to humor is surprise. It’s kind of like special sauce, things can be funny without it but with it they can be a lot funnier with it.

But it’s not enough all on its own. I pointed out to God that surprise is also the secret of horror. Not just in a jump out and shout “boo” kind of way, but in a “wow, it never occurred to me that my safety and complacency could be violated that way” kind of way. So we got to wondering just how many things could surprise be a part of. I’ve already noted humor and horror. It can also be a part of tragedy. It can be a part of romance, in fact it probably needs to be. And, of course, it’s a big part of some of the best of science.

So God decided that in the gamut of human experience, surprise isn’t an experience itself, it’s more like a spice, or maybe a condiment. It’s not generally worthwhile on it’s own, but it makes other things so much better. Or, sometimes, so much worse.

So the Chinese curse may be “may you live in interesting times,” meant to show that “interesting” is not always good, but I’d like to offer up the Unsciptured blessing: “May you have just enough surprise to keep life interesting.”

But not too interesting.

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