Apophasis (a-pof’-a-sis): The rejection of several reasons why a thing should or should not be done and affirming a single one, considered most valid.
It was lunch time again at “Decision School.” I have been sent here by my parents because I have trouble deciding. Just The other the day, I put my shoe on the wrong foot and got a blister on my big toe. Before that, I put my parents’ car I reverse instead of forward and smashed into the garage and dented the garage door and dented the car’s rear bumper. All told, I did $1,100 worth of damage. Two weeks before that I had put my pants on backward. I was ridiculed and came home crying. The topper was lighting the house on fire. Instead of lighting the wood in the fireplace, I lit the firewood in the rack next to the fireplace. W’re living in a motel while the house is being repaired.
At Decision School we are trained daily in picking the right thing or a goal. We use the elimination order, critically evaluating possible reasons for the appropriateness of a means for achieving an aim. Aside from determining alternate means, we have to determine whether it is beneficial or whether it will cause greater harm, or harm itself. In the case of the fire, I should have considered that lighting the stacked wood, although easier and cleaner than reaching into the dirty fireplace, could potentially burn down the house—a greater harm than the aforementioned—eventually it would ignite the fireplace as the house went up in flames, but my “means”of achieving the aim were clearly faulty.
Toad at Decision School we’re plucking chickens for tonight’s dinner. This presents a real challenge because I can’t think of any alternatives to simply pulling out the feathers. I guess the chicken needs to be dead first. So, first I need to decide how to kill the chicken. But I need to catch it, but before that I need to get it out of its cage. And how do I catch when it is freed?
How do I do that? The chicken plucking exercise is too complex for me to handle. I’m dropping out. Should I pay my tuition? $1,000 is a lot of money . . .
