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Why I Cannot Give You a Definition of Nonsense

Insight #354

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(Why no pretty picture? Because it finally dawned on me how much it costs our suffering planet every time I ask AI to produce a few sample pictures for me to choose from. No, it’s not free. Not even the “free” ones. Not only that, but somewhere another starving artist is packing paints away under a bed. What was I thinking!)

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Do you remember what Steve Ballmer, then CEO of Microsoft, said of the iPhone launch? You don’t? Strange, because the media would not let him forget it.

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”

The media really shouldn’t have made such a fuss about it, because Mr. Ballmer wasn’t wrong. Well, he was, and he wasn’t. If you looked at the iPhone only from a price-cost perspective, then he was right. No chance. Too expensive. But, as he clarified later, he was also wrong. “I wish I’d thought about the model of subsidizing phones through the operators.”

The iPhone from an affordability perspective was nonsense. But the business model of building the cost into the monthly phone bill, well, that was a brand new kind of business sense.

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So, here’s the thing. If you want to understand the nature of nonsense, then there are two important points to note:

• Something is often nonsense simply because you don’t have all the information. You don’t understand. Not yet.
• Something that was once nonsense can, over time, become sense.

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Let’s express it this way: Sense depends on what you know when you know it.

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Which is why I cannot give you a definition of nonsense. Any definition of nonsense that I come up with will, by implication, be nonsense. Because it will be nonsense as I understand it now. My nonsense. Based on my sense.

But I can tell you the difference between nonsense and bullshit. Nonsense happens when we are not taking care. Bullshit is nonsense created on purpose. The one happens because we are careless and the other we create with intent.

What then is humbug? Is it just a polite form of bullshit? Nope. Not if you know that a humbug is a hard-boiled sweet. (Usually peppermint flavored, and often with black and white stripes.) And that humbug also means obstinate.

So, the person who shouts “Humbug!” instead of “Bullshit!”, is just too inflexible to admit that nonsense more often than not has a dollop of sense to it. A person unlike Steve Ballmer.

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Okay, okay. I’ll stop being a stubborn humbug. I’ll be bold and give you my definition of nonsense. Nonsense is anything that stops you from being successful, because it side-tracks you from your work, tricks you into wrong decisions, and trips you short of your goals.

What’s your definition? You don’t you have one? Keep in mind that the purpose of a convincing definition is to promote clarity. Without a clear definition of what nonsense is to you, you will be doomed to step in it. Again and again.

If you accept my definition, then at least you should be able to side-step my nonsense. You might as well start there.

Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.

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Quote of the Moment: “Growing up, I often wanted to shout bullshit, but my mother was a fast draw with the soap.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.

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