…make ‘em say un…
“Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.”
-George S. Patton-
I am here typing to you with two fingers because yesterday a pair of different orthopedic doctors named Ryan, and another named Bryan, couldn’t unjam and reset my index finger, despite hours spent using a medieval trap. My fingers were in that trap because I did something to them by carrying a camera tripod the wrong way…and because after 6 hours at a downtown Los Angeles emergency room, all I had was a shot of steroid in the arm…and a heavy dose of opioid in my stomach…and a broken USB cord on my cellphone…and some misguided empathy for a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt a woman took turns alternating vomit and poorly dranken ice water onto…
Three years previously I trapped this index tendon while inflating a pilates ball. Being injured by inflatable rubbers and plastic lenses has brings me an anxious ping with every new non-threatening appearing object I pass in my daily interactions. I tiptoe quietly past my pencils, arms raised and eyes closed to ensure they don’t poke and stab me. I nervously type from this couch aware that at any moment it might swallow me in pillows and send me deep to the lazy realm.
How did I get here?
I am not concerned about the broader human phantasmagoric journey. I don’t need to know how conscious the sperm was that infiltrated my mother's eggs to make me. I don’t want to find out whose past life I am living in this current life as a means to making someone’s future life another person’s different life. But I do want to know what is provoking these cosmic inconveniences? I had just spent my day planning and producing podcasts, and right as I was ready to grab a taco from life’s food truck, the angle I held a camera at decided my time would be better spent complaining to an ER nurse to feed me whiskey and pull my finger (medically).
What is it about the unplanned plans that make planned plans seem like such failures?
Is it the un? A planned plan is un-less, and an unplanned plan is un-ful, so it might be the un. But I can’t be unsure.
The dictionary definition of an un is an opposite, a reversal, a deprivation, a negation or a ceasing. Un is unnecessary and unneeded. But if an un is a reversal and a negation perhaps I can use its power against itself?
I wanted to un my uns so I tried using the opposite of un, the nu, and blasted it with that fabled blackmark of early aughts alternative music, Nu-Metal…
Nothing happened outside an aggressively compressed bass line summoning an extremely disappointing rap verse and a chorus of finger gloved scream crying. This couldn’t be my last resort.
Nu isn’t really the opposite of un. Un has no opposite. According to the word hippo there are no categorical antonyms for this prefix. Un is the most prolific of prefixes, freely and widely used in Old English, where it formed more than 1,000 compounds. It underwent a mass extinction in early Middle English, but emerged with renewed vigor in the 16th century to form compounds with native and imported words.
So based on those historical etymological notes, un came back from the dead and is some sort of nebulous all society problem, vigorously combining with words native and imported like some wine ravenous distributor soaked to the teeth on his own goods. It’s drunk, bringing you only ten bottles from that twelve pack, and it probably wants to spend a half hour in your shop complaining about its boss before passing out in your restroom.
Un is a conundrum. Sure most of the time it is a negation, following words around only for them to peer backwards and receive a hearty NOPE. But put it in front of certain verbs like thaw, ravel, and loosen and all un does is reinforce the action of the verb. To thaw is to unthaw, to loosen is to unloosen and to ravel is to unravel.
The word ravel is great on its own with the un. We would be in a much better place if we could all just become raveled.
Un feels unfair. It is unhinged, unruly, and unrelentless as it universally attaches itself to anything it wants yet only leaves us with 2 points in a game of scrabble. I can’t unsee this unscrupulous behavior. I need my scruples people, I want some freaking scruples!!
Perhaps the solution for this unorthodox dilemma could be to un un, and pit un against itself. I proceeded to look for words and ideas made out of ununs but all I discovered were the former names of chemical compounds with atomic numbers in the 100’s like ununpentium, ununseptium, ununoctium and most importantly unununium.
*editor’s note – these would all make great nu-metal band names
Unununium, is the former name of roentgenium, a superheavy, synthetic radioactive element with a very short half-life with the atomic number 111 and the atomic symbol Uuu. It is like the name for the first born child of a lotto playing astrologer trying to sync their angel numbers to a birth certificate. Uh-nuh-nuhn-ee-uhm.
Unfortunately un is unstoppable.
I understand now that unless we unite to make un less universal, we will need to accept its unflinching unwavering uniqueness.
Things break in this world. Plans fail. Mistakes happen. So I am one less a finger at the moment, but I am also one more a story. And I couldn’t have had this moment if the unknown hadn’t found and changed me.
(or if the Ryan’s and their Bryan had just finished their job and trapped my finger into being fixed)
So I spent all these words trying to find ways to get away from un, but maybe I should just embrace it.
So F it. Let’s just have fun.
… Un! Na, nah na nah (had to!)
Good lord, I love how you play with words. What a delightful exploration of something not often considered (Such an unconsidered, unnoticed un!)
"It’s drunk, bringing you only ten bottles from that twelve pack, and it probably wants to spend a half hour in your shop complaining about its boss before passing out in your restroom." A personification like this makes me wonder what stories this ununcouth character has to tell.
Hope your finger feels better!
Not the Pilates ball 😂 I hope you’re recovering ok!