How’s this? If you got a chance to defy reality and change your situation with a wish, just a wish, what could you even do? Cliché, cliché, but looking past the social stigma of trespassing onto this guard-patrolled fort of a forbidden subject, there’s a lot to be considered. First, we can accept that cartoonists (read: propagandists) had purpose in sticking this plot twist in every possible situation in our movies and books. They present it as pure fiction: plot, not a cause-effect precedent that should forever bind in your head. Most of the time, it involves greedy people doing their greedy things only to regret it always, and really, this is only a basic form of the idea. Then, there are rules: guidelines that correct for the faults created by the ambiguity of language, or perhaps that the idiomatic phrase itself is badly defined. You can’t get more wishes, and no hurting people or defying universal laws. But my reasoning suggests that if you, explicitly you, were given the opportunity, the result wouldn’t be very cinema-worthy.

Here’s how I see it: It’s true that we’re naturally reared to think voodoo and magic always go wrong, shortcuts are deception, and effort is the only thing that’ll work. But that’s not all. It’s simply that I can’t think of a single honest thing someone here could put their heart into wishing for. Now, you could wish for something stupid and material:  some money, or a longboard. But that’d be a total WASTE of the opportunity! Switching to the other extreme, you’ll wish for world peace or abolishing poverty, topics that are grossly oversimplified in your american head because they mean nothing to you. In the middle? 4.0? I wouldn’t dare as it would completely ruin the game. Flying? Psh, I can do that in my sleep (literally). And it probably wouldn’t be such a good idea, again movies. Perhaps it’s because our needs are so ridiculously met and overmet that we don’t have excuses for want. If you ask other parts of the world, they’ll wish for affluence, peace, maybe just an opportunity. (I don’t mean to attribute their lack of hesitance to Disney movies.) From this high blue rooftop, that’s what we (I) speculate they’ll say. Whether or not it’s true, I can’t know. Is this horrid lack of desire consistent throughout history or is it just part of our age? I have to assume the former because if the latter were true, I would hope more people would be talking about that in place of some pop-culture trivia nonsense. Shortened for shortness.