the lost art of hand raising

I love structure. If I had my way, I would demand that wars been fought in turn-based style, meaning one side could not counterattack until the other side had finished their initial strike. My desire for order has always given me the inspiration to participate in a lost ritual: raising my hand.

We now live in an age where chaos supposedly brings order. People are encouraged to speak out without a prompt in group discussions. It's basically a race to see who can speak the quickest and the loudest. I've been in too many situations where I raise my hand to chime in my comment to the discussion. Of course, the discussion leader always sneaks in their own little preamble, "You don't have to raise your hand, you can just talk...."

But I like to raise my hand, you disorderly heathen. I prefer to maintain the balance of the universe, thank you very much. Mankind has survived centuries of challenges and hardships (dinosaurs, floods, Pokemon) to preserve order, which a simple hand-raise upholds. I'm not about to blow all that progress because I want to speak before the person next to me. Don't worry, friend, we will both get our chance to talk, just get in line. Also, there's nothing worse than interrupting someone when it could have been easily avoided with a effortless lift of the arm.

As an instant-noodle society, we can't continue discussing with a speak-first, listen-never mentality. We must take the time to maintain the order our forefathers protected when they defeated the dinosaurs (by casting Comet2) in prehistoric times. There are probably some haters out there, but at least I got support from my boys and Nelly Furtado.