The road less practical
a SUIT column by Chris Jungle

My oldest friend gave me a call last week, and we talked about our past, present, and future. Halfway through the conversation, he said, "My parents are pretty practical people, so why is it that I turned out wanting to write?" Of course, I had no answer for him as no one thinks being a columnist is exactly useful. He wants to be a poet, and I'm still debating which aspiration is more foolish. Then, I wondered what it meant to be practical. What is practical? My trusty dictionary tells me practical is in, relating to, concerned with, well adapted to, or inclining to look to, actual practice, actual conditions, results, or utility. You'd think the definition of practical would be more practical.

Since the dictionary doesn't adequately explain the meaning of being practical, I'm going to go with the definition I already assumed. Practical, to me, always meant working toward immediate and rewarding goals. I was practical in school. Study hard for a test, or work hard on a paper, and I got a reward depending on how well I accomplished these tasks. School wasn't life, though. School, itself, was a big test the practical prodded their way through, but then came something called employment.

Now, I've had jobs since I was fourteen--save a few unemployed months in between these jobs--and I just can't force myself to be practical about jobs. I don't see working all the day through, five days a week, forty-eight to fifty weeks a year, all for the sake of doing a job and getting paid for it. I've spent hours in front of the computer busy with my little writing projects trying to think of something to say, and sometimes the words come and sometimes they don't. Not exactly a practical way to spend one's time.

Does it matter whether life is practical? Is practicality in the eye of the beholder? How come nobody uses the word "practic" anymore? Is asking unimportant questions unpractical? Is it entertaining? Annoying? Pointless? Senseless?

I looked up antonyms for practical, and some of the ones that stuck out were "impossible," "inefficient," and "useless." I bet a practical person thought up those antonyms. Even with all the words ganging up against me and saying to be unpractical is not a good thing, I can't bring myself to become practical.

The main problem is that life doesn't seem to be practical. Iraq refused UN inspectors for a while, seven babies are coming out at one time, gangs are more glamorous to kids than diplomas, wealth is scattered without reason or purpose, and the weather still does what it wants to regardless of how many Doppler radar systems we have.

So what do the unpractical do about it? We run and hide in our imaginary world. We use every escape method we know. We hide in our books, music, movies, television, sports, meditations, beliefs, drugs, and conversations, and hope everything was worth it when it's all done.

I remember wanting to be a zoo keeper when I was about ten. Wouldn't it be cool to be with the animals every day? Then, I met a zoo keeper, and he told stories about how he'd been bitten by snakes, ferrets, and birds. I realized the animals didn't always appreciate being locked up. It would've been practical to be a zoo keeper, but it also would've been painful.

So as my friend and I chattered about working jobs we're not fond of, we knew we had to do a lot of things we didn't really enjoy to be able to maintain our useless ambitions. Then again, it's not very practical to think about not being practical. That means this column is pointless banter about pointlessness, a focused discussion about being unfocused. The ying and the yang are starting to blend together in a gray circle. Myths are believed while the truth is scorned. Aliens! Pixies! Fry bread! Pancakes! Catch phrases over used. Play the songs everybody knows. Write more courtroom dramas. We can never get enough.

But I can go on. It can make less and less sense until it's all just one big fat commercial about something everyone will want to buy but can't because it doesn't exist and never will, and we'll strive every day of our lives to achieve the myth only to find out once we get there it was all just in our heads.

Chris Jungle is practically a legend in the arts of unpractical prose.

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