Proverbial Proverbs And Contradictory Contradictions (And Other Things I Can't Make Into Alliteration Right Now)

Is it

(a) better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt

or is that

(b) he who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever?

?

I don’t know. Like most dichotomies, the true answer likely lies somewhere in the middle and/or draws from both sides¹. I pretty much live my life according to (a), and most of the time I think that in many situations I’ve kinda just tricked a lot of people into thinking I’m smart just by virtue of not saying anything. But I also feel like I’m at a point where I need to suck it up and pay more attention to the first half of (b) because soon I’ll end up the second half of (b).

I guess the real question is, who’s smarter, Mark Twain or some old Chinese dude?

Non sequitur numero uno²: One of my team’s patients this past week had necrotizing fasciitis. That’s right, fuckin’ FLESH EATING BACTERIA. Totally. Fucking. AWESOME!!! (For me. For her, slightly less awesome.)

Non sequitur numero dos: Today, I saw an older black gentleman wearing a green t-shirt that said ‘Irish Princess’ in a totally girly font. I LOL’d. Not really. I CTM’d (=chuckled to myself, duh) in my head while remaining stone-faced on the outside. Living in a hipster neighborhood has trained me to never show excitement or interest in anything or anyone ever. And to laugh only sardonically, especially when people don’t ‘get’ my obscure references. (I’ve resisted tapered pants, Devendra Banhart and Pabst Blue Ribbon, though, which I consider a success.)

But seriously. Can we go back to the necrotizing fasciitis?! Even the WORD is cool! I mean, look at those two Is sitting next to each other like incestuous bastard children. Totally hot. And ‘necrotizing’? Only awesome words like ‘necrophiliac’ and ‘necromonger’ and ‘necronomicon’ have the prefix of death! (No, literally, ‘necro-’ is a Greek prefix meaning ‘death’. I just wiki’d it.)

¹ I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that I just used the word ‘dichotomy’ in everyday conversation.

² Look, I’ve combined Latin with the language of the Latinos! Aren’t I just the clever?