The Guide to Lamentability
Traveling daily across the Internet, we are exposed to the most insane levels of decadence and secondhand embarrassment which, one way or another, reach us; be it through a Facebook share, a link on a blog we like, a YouTube comment, assorted aberrations inhabiting the depths of the Internet arrive before our eyes and we sit there like mummies in front of the computer while our brain drips out of our ears. From this kind of experience a word began echoing in my thoughts: Lamentability. I took to using the term privately, in my own head, until one day my conspirator friend Diego “Center” Castillo used the term LAMENTABILITY (in actual caps lock) in a comment on the social network. That was when I realized: the science of Lamentability was slowly populating the Collective Unconscious. From that fact on, I felt encouraged to use the term openly and began dedicating a few daily hours to systematizing the study and use of Lamentability as a divinatory tool (the art of divining consists in obtaining information inaccessible through traditional means) — a kind of Tarot of secondhand embarrassment.
All of this will be explained in detail below, in this treatise which, we hope, will bear fruit in other studies and practices, leading the ancient art of Lamentability to the standing it deserves.
What is Lamentability
It is the Art and Science of calculating the odds of an event presenting lamentable outcomes for participants and/or observers. (source: House of Lies)
The academic definition is not great yet, but basically it is a set of reflections, questions and considerations aimed solely at objectively predicting the risk of an event being, or turning into, crap.
Contrary to what it may seem, the calculation of Lamentability is an ancient art; the great exponents of the art of detecting, or even anticipating, high levels of Lamentability were people like Socrates (did not even protest when drinking the poison, being already saturated with the Lamentability surrounding him), Jesus Christ (“forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do“) and Nietzsche (died considered insane, yet time was quick to prove the man right; we can say he was the “I told you so” guy regarding the horrors of Nazism). Nostradamus evidently made use of the divinatory arts of Lamentability in his predictions of the future.
What these people lacked, in their time, was the tool we have today for calculating the Lamentability of certain events with precision: the Lamentability Index (LdI). Before the invention of this powerful algorithm, the calculation of Lamentability was done intuitively and was of a highly introspective and private nature; which is why it was common to attribute mastery of this knowledge to notable personalities of history, like the ones cited above. HOWEVER, today we fortunately have the LdI calculation, which democratized the population’s access to this art and science, and whose practical effects can be compared to the invention of the printing press and the people’s access to books, once the treasure of a few.
Calculating the LdI
The LdI is an index that goes from 0 (zero) to 1 (one). LdI zero means: great moments, happiness, ease and good memories. LdI one means: a day to forget, at best. To calculate the LdI and use it as a reliable decision-making index, there is a simple procedure. As an example, I will use an invitation I received last year: let’s hit the Mundo Imaginário festival in São Thomé das Letras?!
Very well. I love São Thomé das Letras. I have been there 6 times, both with the town full and with the town empty. I have never attended (a lie, but it was so long ago) but I know quite well how these electronic music festivals in the middle of the woods work. So in this case I had reasonable knowledge of the place. When you are completely ignorant of your destination, the LdI calculation acquires larger dimensions of improbability, which can nevertheless be worked around by a skilled scientist of everyday decisions (which you perhaps are not yet). On, then, to the first activity of the LdI calculation:
1. Listing the conditions of the environment
We begin with the possible negative aspects, since this is, above all, about calculating LAMENTABILITY. We divide them into tense (weight 1), very tense (weight 2) and ignorable (weight 0). Bear in mind these are highly personal, non-universal values. The LdI calculation is one of the sciences of intimacy.
- non-stop rave-style music festival: tense
- upper-middle-class youths gathered in large numbers (a very high crowd): tense
- neo-hippie-cocaine-and-ecstasy-user style predominant in the environment: very tense
- rainy weather forecast for the event date: tense (as we will see below, I underestimated this factor when I ran the calculation a year ago)
Next, we list the mitigating factors, dividing the items into impossible (weight 0), probable (weight 1), improbable (weight 0.5):
- meeting someone interesting, with possible affective intercourse: improbable
- meeting a deranged person, with possible sexual interactions free of commitment: probable
- possibility of fleeing the party and enjoying nature undisturbed: probable
- discovering that I enjoy raves and stuffing myself with ecstasy: impossible
2. Relating the values obtained
We have four negative items and four mitigating ones, but this parity is not mandatory for the calculation. The sum of the negative weights came to 5, while the mitigating ones came to 2.5. The total is 7.5.
Now we divide the maximum LdI index (1) by the sum of the weights (7.5). The approximate result is 0.13, which we will call the basic unit of Lamentability (BUL).
We multiply the BUL by the negative weight (5) to arrive at the approximate Lamentability Index: 0.66. Therefore, the chance of my participation in the Mundo Imaginário event being lamentable was approximately 66%.
3. Making decisions and facing the facts
Based on the extremely reliable indexes of this calculation, I decided to abstain from attending the event. “Wow, you are a bore, a pessimist,” some might say. But the fact is that, given how things went at said event, I was actually being extremely optimistic…
In truth I discovered I was being prejudiced when I listed the negative items of my Lamentability analysis. If you visit a website that was advertising the festival, you will see it is a showcase of diversity, musical eclecticism and positive thinking! A wonderful world!
But if you read the account of one of the event’s attendees, you will see I was completely mistaken. It was much, much worse than one could suppose. Disorganization, abandonment of the audience, lack of infrastructure, a calamitous storm (lightning killed a man) were tragic ingredients of the event, firing the LdI to maximum level. Though tragic, there is nothing absurd about lightning striking people — it is nature. However…
4. When the LdI exceeds its own limits
The absurdity of a situation arising from human action, according to some scholars, can push the LdI past its maximum level. In such cases, there are grave consequences for the integrity of those involved. Symptoms include: shame at belonging to the human race, deep dejection, confusion of the senses, walking in circles repeating “why”, and other bizarre symptoms.
So there you are at the Mundo Imaginário festival, a storm has razed everything, there is no food, no sound, nothing good to do there… But you decide to join the enraged crowd and loot a beer truck, since the logic seems to be that one mistake justifies the next and so on. Lamentability is already near its maximum value, perhaps it has already reached it. You think it can’t get worse, and at least you will drink a warm beer resulting from your looting of the truck. However, you did not count on…
[video: the chainsaw maniac of São Thomé das Letras — YouTube]
The chainsaw maniac, maaan!!!
A bizarre and unpredictable element such as this drove the LdI to an unbelievable 1.87, according to studies published by scientists at an important fictitious laboratory. The drastic level increase began when the very high crowd decided to wreck the beer truck, peaking with the appearance of our Jason of Minas Gerais.
I have never in my life been so thankful for having run a prior Lamentability study. This proves the extreme usefulness and efficacy of our method, meticulously developed over months of consumption of suspicious substances studies and field research.
5. Making exceptions
How many times have we stood before situations with a high LdI and taken the risk anyway? Sometimes one mitigating factor or positive point can be enough for the venture in question to proceed, even with Lamentability leaping to the eye. For example: you are invited to that terrible venue with awful music, but a person you have your eye on will be there. You must then become a bastion of focus and optimism and go ahead, because the good things in life are not made of calculations and probabilities alone.
Summing up
The calculation of Lamentability should not be done at random, at the risk of making your life impractical and turning you into a pessimistic, exaggeratedly cautious person. Personally, I use it only when I receive suspicious invitations or decide to go out at night in São José dos Campos, an initiative which by itself already starts at an average LdI of 0.5.
Use with moderation this powerful knowledge which, applied with wisdom, will spare you lamentable moments and embarrassing situations.