(last edited on April 7, 2006)
To Whom It May Concern:
(or, more specifically...)
To W___ and S______:
Greetings! I received (not recieved) your kind invitation to your exchange of marriage vows on Saturday, July 31, 1999. Since it is now time to party like it is 1999, I have decided (after laborious thought and much debate) to accept your invitation.
I found your enclosed reply card to be very thought-provoking and highly intriguing in its deceptive simplicity—hidden within your reply card is an existential train of thought that has kept me without sleep for minutes.
“The favour of your reply,” I believe, was the first line. This in and of itself seems cordial and comprehensible enough, but it is not until we attempt to comprehend that we recognize the incomprehensible. My first reaction was to ponder the notion that my reply was considered a favour. Am I so esteemed, I wondered, that simply receiving a response from me is considered a gift that I graciously bestow? Should people say, “Thank you,” when I say, “Hello”? (In all honesty, that was my second reaction. My first reaction was to look at the pretty paper.)
Then, another thought occurred to me that was less flattering. The spelling you used of “favour” did not escape my notice. That spelling, as far as I am aware, is most common when referring to a tangible “favour”—such as a party favour. So, my response is somehow a trinket—a disposable cheap plastic toy? This made me so angry that I had to stop writing depressing poetry for a moment and actually experience life. (Fortunately, I quickly recovered.)
The next line, however, was your ultimate vindication—in fact, it more than made up for the extreme insult dealt to me by equating my reply with a nickel’s worth of plastic. Your next line read, “is requested.” On the surface, this seems like a standard fragment to follow your previous line. However, having already spent several hours pondering your first line, I had the distinct impression that, once again, there was more here than meets the eye. You used the passive voice—“is requested”—instead of phrasing the clause, “We request the favour of your reply.” Knowing my writing style, which heavily uses the passive voice for effect, and knowing that you know my writing style, and knowing that you know that I know that you know my writing style, and knowing that you know that I know that you know that I know that you know my writing style, I realized the true intent of this line. You were emulating me by using the passive voice. And knowing that imitation is the highest form of flattery, and knowing that you know that imitation is the highest form of flattery, and knowing that you know that I know that you know that imitation is the highest form of flattery, I realized that I was being flattered by your use of the passive voice that is so often used by myself.
Your next line was a stroke of pure genius (which, once again, must have been a nod-of-the-hat to me). You wrote, “on or before July 10, 1999.” Your logical phraseology prevented much confusion, which, seeing how much of that I create for myself, is greatly appreciated. Some persons (and they know who they are) might have written, “on July 10, 1999.” However, when people see that, they are going to wonder if they can reply prior to July 10. Granted, most hosts who say, “Reply on July 10,” are going to accept a reply prior to July 10, but what if they don’t? What if they insist on receiving their reply on July 10? This places an incredible amount of stress on the invitees, who must now investigate options of insuring their reply letters will arrive precisely on July 10. Likewise, you did not say, “Reply before July 10” or “Reply by July 10.” As before, this would have created confusion among your invitees had you done so—but you wisely did not. If you had, you would have introduced another stressor into the lives of your invitees by making them wonder if July 9 or July 10 was the absolute deadline for committing their presences to the services. For those with uncertain schedules, this could have been devastating. Thankfully, you had the wisdom to be clear and specific: “on or before.”
The next line, however, was by far the best. Like a Zen koan, your next line—“M____________________”—has no apparent meaning. Sure, the context makes it clear that the blank line is a space for the name... but what meaning is held by the elusive “M”? Ultimately, in a fit of breakthrough (what I call a “neuron popping”), I realized that it was the quest for meaning—and not the non-existent meaning itself—that was important. In the truest sense of Zen, your puzzle was the meaning, precisely because it did not have a solution. The breakthrough this realization afforded me created unparalleled elation, which lasted for at least a certain duration of time.
Below that line came the riddling “________Accepts” line. I realized, after about a half-hour of thought (along with extensive research, culminating in me asking someone to explain it to me), that this was a prompt for me to accept the invitation. However, this explanation only served to puzzle me further—in particular, the plural “Accepts.” I can, after all, only accept this invitation once. I could accept it multiple times, I suppose, if I accepted then refused then accepted (ad infinitum), however this would be extremely non-magnanimous of me. So, ultimately, I realized that I simply could not check off the “Accepts” prompt—because my intention was to kindly accept this invitation once, not dubiously accept it an indeterminate number of times.
The next line presented me with great difficulty. I inferred (or rather, had it explained to me) that to check off the “_________Regrets” line was to indicate the opposite of the line above it. However, this was an incomplete explanation; was it an indication of the opposite of the intended meaning of the above line, or the literal meaning? Since those possible meanings were themselves opposites, logically this line could have an infinite set of meanings—which meant that, by checking here, I would be certain (by default) to be covering the meaning which I, the recipient, intended to convey back to you. You, however, would be unable to decipher this meaning, as the line that I checked held an infinite set of meanings. Therein lies my difficulty; thus, this explanatory letter.
I checked the “________Regrets” line to indicate that I will be present for your wedding vows, and all associated celebrations (with the exception of the honeymoon). At first, I had some trepidation about doing so. First and foremost, I didn’t believe that I really had any regrets. After all, life is a dynamic series of learning events—all of my past decisions and choices, for better or for worse, have made me who I am. I am, in a sense, the sum of my histories (which is what the laws of physics would indicate, albeit with an entirely different semantic meaning). Having regrets would be an admission of defeat, I thought, rather than an attempt to overcome the lemons life tosses and incorporating all of my history into my being. But if I adopted that philosophy in its totality, I would be unable to utilize one of my favorite altruisms—that being, that it is better to regret something you haven’t done than to regret something you have done. By default, if I had no regrets, that statement would be inane and meaningless, simultaneously and at the same time. (Forgive me if that was redundant and repetitive.) So, for the sake of consistency, let us assume that I do indeed have regrets. That would therefore make me a hypocrite, which is not so bad. In any event, when I think about it, there are some things I have done that I wish I hadn’t—such as eating that enchilada that upset my stomach earlier today.
So, when all is said and done, the most well-prepared response I can have to your kind invitation is: I, with honest admittance of my regrets, inform you that I will accept your invitation.
I once again thank you for your kind invitation. Enclosed is a page full of T’s.
Yours Very Truthfully,
-David Joseph Hennessy
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