The subconscious has a lot to answer for. All my mistakes, for example.
All my success are down to my unerring conscious.
Oh, you too?
Devil’s advocacy (fees on commission)
However, where would we be without that charming chaos agent? We’d not have the pleasure of that extra glass of wine, or those delightful Amazon purchases after the first one being made, or whipping out a bon mot before you’re on your way down the stairs.
That devil in your ear. The one who always wins over the angel on your shoulder. 1
There would be no art, no comedy2, and no politics. Okay, maybe the last one isn’t helping. Strike it from the court record.
Without the subconcious, millions of otherwise unemployable people would be out of a job – shrinks, know-it-alls, psychics and their debunkers, psychiatric nurses… The DOW would have a new one ripped it with the subsequent lack of capital surging through its veins.
Intertribal hatred would be over. World peace would break out. Work productivity would go through the roof, making Mr Spock’s ears green with envy. Were to to feel envy.
Even more! Drug and alcohol abuse would be over. In fact, every kind of abuse. Because is it not written the subconscious rule these magisteria?
Hmmm. That’s not helping either. Perhaps I have an subconscious drive to see my client in the clink.
Plea deal?
Lubricious
While having trite neurotic thoughts in the shower (and how much of the subconscious does that spill?) the word lubricious floated regally out of purple gas of my internal ether.3
The odd thing about this is – I wasn’t sure it was a word but if it were a word, then I would know what it meant. I’d even know how to say it proper.
So, unlike most people, I checked a dictionary to be sure. See above.
Lo! I was right. I did know what it meant.
It’s a word I might only use ironically as it’s so posh. I’d certainly not expect anyone to know what it meant if I did use it. And that would make me a tw*t – using wordy words to shiv people is beyond the pale.4
What a waste of noggin space, eh? Why doesn’t my subconscious help me with irregular Czech verb exceptions?
And where the bloody hell did I ever learn this word, even read or hear this word being used?
No response.
My subconscious is taking the fifth.
A different devil, not me, the devil what is doing the advocating here.
Which relies on prodding the violence of our subconscious. BTW, what’s the diff between the subconscious and the unconscious? Wakefulness?
Not the only thing that’s purple in this post,. But hey, this is Substack.
Totally beyond one’s Weltanshaung? Amitrite, Jonah?