Posted on January 5, 2016 by Oolin
Note: this was published in 2016, before the emoji revolution. But, you know, its the SPIRIT that counts.
Friend at home: “How’d the day go, boys?
Friend on trip:“Sdfghaiodfubadjnfgl!@dwgnwfghwfH!!njsfkgjb wrn!! DDAAAAAAaaaAA!!!!”
Friend at home:”Is Joey Icelandic?”
Friend#2 on trip: “No dude, he’s Stoked. “
I send a lot of emojis, and I recently started Snap-chatting. It’s great. I’m stoked. It’s fun to blast a bunch of emojies into a group chat, like splurging a heartfelt “Wooooooo!!” into a text conversation.
But smiley faces with their tongue out (or cat faces) just aren’t capable sometimes. Nor is a clipart image of a snowboarder sliding down a white triangle. They amount to a glimpse, like a sliver in a tree trunk.
People are awesome. We are capable of attenuating awesome energies of which the spectrum be unfathomable in its depth and vastness. Our faces contort in all manner of stretchy smiles, compressions and twirls. Our vocal cords are capable of baritone roars and rapid-fire falsetto squeals. Not to mention bodily gesticulations, which range from discoordinated flails to corpse poses and curled cannonballs.
We ourselves are colorful canvas on which we smash the world with the awesome nature and overwhelming power of our positive emotions. We paint the world in the moments when we are burning most brightly; when we are totally stoked. When the icicles on your face (or in your beard) cast your smile as you toss turns down the mountains soft white alleyways, molding a bright smile on a frozen face.
You: YeEeeeeEEEeew!!!! Wooo!!!!!
These are the moments inhabiting the upward ramparts of the human spectrum of positive emotion. Are we really meant to put such things into an email? or a text message? or a snap chat?
There are a few emojis that might work. However, I have been incapable of locating them. Maybe my phone is out of date. Maybe that’s what all those square-questionmarks are that my more up-to-date friends send me.
The Shaka. The Rock On. The Fist Pump. They would be great emojies. But even they are but a brief flash of something beautiful; something electrifying. Like a single letter in a haiku, or a lone paragraph in the story of your life, or a single bolt in a tempest.
So, what’s the point in all this? Well, I can’t be too sure. I think I’m suggesting you call in sick. I think I am suggesting that you go do things that get you really excited, to the point where you feel compelled to give shrill cry and contort your face while putting your hands up in ambidextrous shaka. Go get stoked with your friends. Go get stoked, in general. Be with your friends when they get psyched, when you get psyched, when you can all feel the heat from the blistering bonfire of the positive experience. No emojies will be necessary.
OOLIN | San Diego, CA