The Logic We Never Check

Have you ever looked at something and thought, “Well, this is completely useless”—only to turn around a moment later, look at something else, and think, “This is absolute brilliance”?

We live surrounded by logic that we rarely bother to question. Take our smart devices, for instance. We buy laptops, smart TVs, and phones that can connect us to almost anything in the universe. But the moment the Wi-Fi drops or stops playing along, the whole setup collapses. In a second, these brilliant, expensive pieces of technology are rendered completely useless.

I was watching Reacher the other day, and his lifestyle made me pause. Here is a guy with no house, no car, no smartphone, and no luggage. He just has a bank account, the clothes on his back, and a single toothbrush in his pocket. He buys cheap clothes from thrift shops when he needs a change, travels from town to town, and explores the country (even if trouble seems to find him wherever he goes).

It made me wonder: Why do we carry around so much baggage? Why do we need so many things just to get through a week?

And then my mind drifted back to that single item in his pocket: the toothbrush. What a genuinely wonderful invention! It makes such perfect, practical sense to have a little bristle-topped tool specifically designed to scrub your teeth. Who actually thought of that? I honestly have no idea how people cleaned their teeth generations ago, before my grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ day.

Yet here it is—a humble piece of plastic we use once, twice, three times a day without giving it a second thought. It saves time, saves your teeth, and just works. What on earth would we do without it?

Of course, not every piece of everyday logic is quite as straightforward.

Take Grade 1 math homework, for example. On paper, it ought to be simple logic, right? Wrong. Grade 1 homework has a special way of completely ruining your afternoon, because the “logical” way you learned to solve a problem is apparently not the way it’s “supposed” to be done anymore.

And then there are those days when logic simply leaves the building altogether. You plug the charger into the wall, connect it to your phone, and expect everything to work—Bob’s your uncle. Except today, nothing happens. Why? Nobody knows. The setup is correct, the electricity is on, but the fundamental rules of cause and effect have temporarily taken a holiday.

Our lives are filled with these quiet, everyday mysteries. Sometimes the world makes complete sense, and sometimes it doesn’t at all. I suppose that is all part of being human.

So grab your coffee—preferably in your favourite mug—settle into your favourite chair, and enjoy Issue 28 of The Pineapple: The Logic We Never Check.