I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in pop culture (yes, I am fully aware that qualifies just about everyone except the Religious Right and the Amish).

Klosterman takes a look at all aspects of modern culture from the intrinsic value of Saved by the Bell and the fact that Zack Morris had a cell phone way before it was popular, to the inherent reasons why Toby Keith will always outsell Moby, making brief stops along the way to discuss things like Internet porn, the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, and why professional soccer will never truly grab America by the balls (my words, not Chuck's) the way baseball and football have. Like I said, its a great read if you're down to take an epigrammatic look at pop culture.

One of the many short, untitled essays—or interludes as Klosterman calls them in his ongoing shout out to heavy metal—that are inserted between the longer essays really stuck out and served as the catalyst for today's post:

Life is chock-full of lies, but the biggest lie is math. That's particularly clear in the discipline of probability, a field of study that's completely and wholly fake. When push comes to shove—when you truly get down to the core essence of existence—there is only one mathematical possibility: Everything is 50-50. Either something will happen, or something will not. When you flip a coin what are the odds of it coming up heads? 50-50. Either it will be heads, or it will not. When you roll a six-sided die, what are the odds that you'll roll a three? 50-50. You'll either get a three, or you won't. That's reality. Don't fall into the childish "it's one-in-six" logic trap. That is precisely what all your adolescent authority figures want you to believe. That's how they enslave you. That's how they stole your conviction, and that's why you'll never be happy. Either you will roll a three, or you will not; there are no other alternatives. The future has no memory. Certain things can be impossible, and certain things can be guaranteed—but there is no sliding scale for maybe. Maybe something will happen, or maybe it won't. That's all there is. What are the chances your sister will die from ovarian cancer next summer? 50-50 (either she'll die from ovarian cancer or she won't). What are the chances that your sister will become America's most respected underwater welding specialist? 50-50. It will happen, or it won't. There are two possibilities and both are plausible and unknown. The odds are 2:1. These facts are irrefutable. Quasi-intellectuals like to claim that math is spiritual. They are lying. Math is not religion. Math is the antireligion, because it splinters the gravity of life's only imperative equation: Either something is true, or it isn't. Do or do not; there is no try.

Klosterman's essay immediately hit home and rang true with me—and not just because it was the sort of pseudo-philosophical, yet ridiculous argument I fully support, or because he topped it off with a Yoda reference. It was because my immediate reaction to it was, "Hey, this guy's right! Math is bullshit!" This made me think back to all the things I was taught in elementary school; all the lessons and alleged sage-like wisdom imparted to me by my teachers since Pre-K. And after thinking about it, I came to realize that most of that stuff was bullshit too.

I distinctly remember one of my elementary teachers convincing me that I absolutely had to understand simple algebra. She sold me with the same argument one of her predecessors had used to sell me on long division: that out in the "real world," it was an important skill to have. What a load of shit that turned out to be. Sitting here, a graduating senior in college, I can't remember for the life of me the last time I had to use long division. And I sure as hell can't recall ever breaking out a pen and paper and thinking "If Jeremy can clean our apartment in 30 minutes, Dave in 25 minutes, and I can clean it in 20 minutes, how long would it take us to clean it together?" (This could also be due to the fact that we don't clean inasmuch as throw things in the corner). My point is, though, that my teachers lied to me. In the "real world," people use things like use calculators, hire accountants and ask Asian co-workers for the answers when it comes to math.

Another prime instance of how my elementary school teachers lied to my face was when they explicitly told me never to talk to strangers, under any circumstance. Well, Mrs. Garland, I carried your so-called advice with me all these long years and you know what it's gotten me? Lost, that's what. If I had just stopped and asked for directions when I realized I had no idea what train to get on to go to 6th Ave, I wouldn't be standing in the cold warming my hands on a homeless man's flaming garbage can (all the while hoping he doesn't try and talk to me) In fact, I blame elementary education for every argument that has ever taken place between a man and a woman over the man not wanting to ask for directions, in the history of the universe. He isn't being stubborn; technically it isn't even his fault! He was just told repeatedly in his youth by teachers that if he stopped and spoke to a stranger he was going to get kidnapped, shoved in a hole, and forced to "put the lotion on it's skin."

One of the biggest lies that elementary schools teach us as kids, is taught to us in the gymnasium. Remember when you used to have to pick teams for kickball? The gym teacher would always correct the teams during the draft to ensure that the teams were broken up evenly, that there wasn't a powerhouse who would dominate. In other words, they made sure that the kid with the head gear, the girl with the club foot and the fat kid who liked to sneak bologna into class in his pockets didn't wind up on the same team. They wanted to create the sense that everyone was on an even playing field, literally. Unfortunately, that nonsense just doesn't cut it in the real world, and explains why when the aforementioned bologna smuggler grows up and hits high school and suddenly gets dodge ball after dodge ball unloaded on him, he goes out and buys himself a trench coat. After all, it isn't fair! Right. Well, maybe if the kid was taught that the real world isn't fair back in elementary school, he would have learned to fend for himself without a Beretta (at the very least he would've learned the 5 d's: Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge!).

Did you know that the American Academy of Ophthalmology has stated that sitting "too close" to the T.V. will cause no physical damage to your eyes (and hasn't since 1968 when the FDA prohibited TVs from being built that emitted low level x-rays)? Similarly, I have yet to meet a single blind person with hairy palms. (I did see a smiling, blind chimp once on TV. Does that count, 6th grade health teachers?) Where are elementary teachers coming up with this nonsense? Isn't elementary school supposed to set the tone for the adult that we will one day grow into? No wonder we're all so fucked up.

-Adam
(PS: There is a new update to the Who's reading section, check it out.)