Merismus (mer-is’-mus): The dividing of a whole into its parts.
My decision making has five possible outcomes : yes, no, maybe, I don’t know, and N/A (not applicable). this list is probably not exhaustive, but it helps me decide what to next, which is life’s greatest challenge. When I was young “Yes” and “no” were my go to outcomes—it was a yes/no, either/or world. I was a man of action. I was a Kierkegaardian Guardian—a knight in shining ethics engraved with moral maxims, like “Curiosity killed the day,” “You are what you eat.” I fought for the rights of turtles, pigs and donkeys. I drove 55 MPH, I made macrame peace sign plant hangers, I made my own wine and picket signs. I sold the signs at demonstrations.
Then, one beautiful spring day, I saw a baby buggy rolling down a hill unattended. The baby was holding a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse. I stood there, frozen. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t. I was just starting to get an idea of what to do when the baby blew up, and also took a couple of pedestrians with him. The horror was complete. It ate at my soul. It burrowed a hole in my conscience. Even after I found out the baby was a rubber replica of a real baby, I could not settle my mind.
The incident was part of a successful assassination plot. The two pedestrians who were killed were part of a royalist cabal who wanted to restore royal rule in Germany, and “Make Germany great again.” Their goal begged the question. But, they were real people who really died, and I stood there like I had a whole body cramp.
I was drowning in guilt, strangled by remorse, bludgeoned by indecision—or more accurately, no decision. In my plight, I wondered if not deciding is deciding nevertheless. I couldn’t escape the remorse eating at me—gnawing on my innards, inducing a sort of moral seasickness making me vomit and bringing on a bout of severe dehydration accompanied by explosive flatulence that had wounded my ass.
One night, in the middle of a recurring nightmare where I was a peanut being shelled over and over, I woke up. I yelled “I Don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know, N/A, N/A.” It was a eureka moment. I realized it was unreasonable to expect humans to know what’s going on, and go solely with yes and no, and on bad days, maybe. “I don’t know” removes the shackles of accountability, calming your conscience and restoring your soul. It is as simple as that. If you accompany this with a draught of vodka or tequila, as you feel the alcohol warming your veins, the distance between you and your unfounded self-recriminations will widen even further. You may lose your job and alienate your family, but you will be free.
POSTSCRIPT
The author was found unconscious in a fetal position in a baby carriage in the basement of an abandoned building. He was taken to the hospital where he died repeating “N/A” over and over in what was characterized as “tones so sweet and low.”
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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