Or Else What?
Last week I once again received a heartwarming, personal message from the Dalai Lama. That he would take time from his many responsibilities to send out a message of kindness and love is really quite touching.
It must be his personal assistant, then, that added the threat of impotence, a high probability of being struck by a meteor, and 3 lifetimes of generally bad luck. In fairness, it comes with a caveat that this can all be avoided. All that is required of me is to forward it to every person I can trawl up from my computer within 30 seconds.
For accomplishing this I am promised a moderate amount of good luck.
If I do my very best, but fail to contact the requisite fourty-thousand people, I won't be entitled to any of the promised good luck, but nor will my soul be stolen tonight by a tribe of midget voodoo practitioners. Instead I'll be subject to a lesser punishment, such as all of the food in my fridge spoiling or a mysterious rash that lasts just long enough to cause my girlfriend to leave me.
The magic of the heartwarming message is lost (and some of them are quite good) when it's followed by hollow promises or threats if I don't do exactly as the author says. It's a little insulting as well.
In order to maximize the possible benefit of the message and minimize my annoyance (I'm soooo sensitive sometimes), I've set up a special email account. Please direct all such communication to null@overtorqued.com. Anything sent there will be automatically dispersed into the ether, thus broadcasting the glad tidings to the entire universe. If all goes well it'll rack me up some serious Karma points too.
A good message will spread on its own strength, without need of insulting the reader's intelligence.