People keep breaking their own teeth. Just grabbing the nearest hammer and doing them in. For a moment, it’s easy to dismiss this as another peculiarity in a world saturated with them. But a little observation and consideration reveals this is something far more concerning.
Take, for instance, the constant fallacy of simple proverbs. ‘Just get your foot in the door’ is a good one.
You can get a decent job, you’ve just got to get your foot in the door.
You can get your first house, you’ve just got to get your foot in the door.
You can turn that passion into a living, you’ve just got to get your foot in the door.
There are variations: ‘Get your foot on the ladder’ - ‘The first step is the hardest.’ But whichever foot-obsessed sage is going around spouting this saccharine cureall, they lie by omission, by leaving out the most crucial part of the idea: the door is going keep slamming on your foot. You will constantly slip from the first rung of the ladder. The first step isn’t the hardest, because each step after gets harder.
So I can appreciate why people are doing their own dental work. When all the doors are shutting in your face, or the ladders collapsing, then you may as well preemptively break all your gnashers, because life is going to do it anyway.
Paddy Dobson
4th September 2020