Polonius Jones explains the joke

You've asked yourself this after reading the top of this blog, right? You don't get the joke? You didn't know there was a joke?

Yes, it's a joke and at the same time it's a philosophical statement. Just as "Trackball of Truth" is a measure of the serious but humorous nature of the blog, the joke is a joke designed to work on a couple of levels.

If you want to go through the painful process of having the joke explained to you, please read on...







Okay. Polonius is the dude from Hamlet who says to Hamlet perhaps the best life advice I've ever heard:

"This above all: to thine own self be true,/And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou cans't not be false to any man."

You have to be true to who you are and honestly face the consequences of that reality. Once a person can do that, their entire life can take off. Much of what this blog covers is people deceiving themselves about the world but also about themselves. That just drives me crazy. Plus, it's a Shakespeare quote, a writer who managed to hit on many truths of human existence while still being funny.

The other quote is from Indiana Jones, famed archeologist from the Spielberg/Lucas movies, when his old flame Marian mentioned that he was not the man she knew ten years ago. In a classic Harrison Ford ad-lib, Jones replies, hurting:

"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

One of the life lessons that I've picked up over the years is that it's not how long you live that dictates your physical and mental condition, it's how you live, the mileage that you put on. Whether it's eating, physical injuries, mental negligence, many people pack on the mileage and age much faster than their years. The secret to realistic immortality is getting the lowest mileage per year. Plus it's a terrific movie in-joke.

And by combining these both in the form of Polonius Jones, pop culture meets literature, it's funny, serious, meaningful and a cute synthesis. Polonius Jones sounds like the name of a really cool kick-ass character in a book or movie, and that's no accident either. If all that doesn't convey a sense of what this blog is about, I don't know what does.

See? The joke is never that good after it's been explained.