All sorts of things just keep on piling up.
T-shirts are one of those things which naturally pile up. They’re cheap, so whenever an interesting one catches my eye, I buy it. People give me various novelty T-shirts from around the world, I get commemorative T-shirts whenever I run a marathon, and when I travel I often pick up a few, instead of bringing along extra clothes. Which is why the number of T-shirts in my life has skyrocketed…
— from the article, ‘An Accidental Collection: How I amassed more T-shirts than I can store’, by Haruki Murakami, in The New Yorker, September 20, 2021.
One of the many T-shirts amassed by author Haruki Murakami, prior to writing his essay for The New Yorker, features a bottle cap from a beverage called “The Economist”, along with the suggestion that we think responsibly.
I’ve never tried this particular beverage — I don’t believe they stock it at my favorite liquor store — but I would indeed like to sample it someday. Just because I like quirky names.
All of my favorite beverages have quirky names, and many of the most quirky ones are brewed semi-locally by SKA Brewing in Durango.
I wouldn’t normally perceive a connection between consuming a favorite beverage, and ‘thinking responsibly’. They seem like two ships passing in the night, if you know what I mean. Or maybe, like two parallel universes, and Joe Biden is president in one of them, and Donald Trump is president in the other one.
Meanwhile, I occasionally run across interesting magazine articles posted by a media company called “The Economist Group”, on a website called The Economist. The logo that appears on The Economist website looks remarkably similar to the logo for the above-mentioned beverage, and you might almost believe the two companies are related.
I’m probably having these thoughts because I haven’t quite recovered from last night’s beverage-tasting session. So my thoughts probably aren’t excessively responsible. For that, I will apologize.
I want to declare, however, that I thoroughly embrace the T-shirt philosophy that we should all be thinking responsibly. While also admitting that very few of my most responsible thoughts flow directly from reading a message on someone’s T-shirt.
Sometimes my responsible thinking tells me that the person wearing the T-shirt is trying to be funny, by wearing a rude message on their chest. But they end up simply appearing rude.
More often, the T-shirt has something to do with a vacation somewhere semi-exotic, like Baton Rouge, or Portland… or is promoting the T-shirt company itself. Such messages aren’t rude, but suggest a dire lack of imagination. Only slightly more imaginative are the T-shirts that promote brands of athletic shoes.
Then there are the American flag T-shirts, often with an eagle superimposed over the flag. The eagle usually looks very angry. And I think, “Why is he angry?” Is that a responsible thought?
Some T-shirts celebrate a high school mascot. I see these around Pagosa on occasion, and usually end up wondering why a high school in the middle of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains would have a “Pirate” as a mascot.
Some may say that a responsible thinker wouldn’t be concerned about angry eagles, or pirates, or Baton Rouge. I don’t disagree. I’m not entirely sure, however, what a “responsible” thought looks like.
And am I being responsible when I spend my time and energy thinking about what responsible thinking looks like? Simply because a particular T-shirt caught my attention by looking like it was related to The Economist magazine?
Here’s a thought. If “responsible” means, “to be able and willing to respond”… then how should a thinking person respond to, for example:
My opinion: We don’t need to think responsibly about this T-shirt, because all the responsible thinking has already been done for us, in advance.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.