The Theory of At Least One

This was originally posted in 2006 (I'm still working on the date feature!). Here it is again:

I believe in what I call the Theory of At Least One. The Theory of At Least One means that there is at least one person out there who thinks a certain way or supports a certain cause or has a certain hobby. I believed this long before I became a web surfer (which appellation I really can't claim; I prefer other people to do the surfing and then tell me what sites are cool to visit). In other words, the Theory didn't grow out of me studying the Internet, it grew out of my understanding of human nature. But the Internet backs up the Theory.

Basically, the Theory of At Least One can be described by the phrase, "Well, there's at least one person out there who thinks . . ." But the important thing about the Theory of At Least One is that it doesn't, necessarily, refer to things like conspiracy theories. And it also doesn't, necessarily, refer to a small group of people or fans all agreeing on something. It refers mostly to the individual. So, I will think to myself, "Well, there's at least one person out there who makes gorilla sounds on the underground." Or, "Well, there's at least one person out there who thinks Happy Gilmore is an existential poem about the futility of life." Or "There's at least one person out there who owns a dog named Tolstoy." Or "There's at least one person out there who thinks that some minor soap star is the best actor in the world."

The Theory of At Least One doesn't apply, particularly, to craziness. I'm sure there's at least one person out there who thinks he/she is an alien (possibly, more than one person!). Nor does the Theory apply to deliberate fantasying, like those of us who created our own stories to add to Tolkien's universe. Rather, the Theory refers to the idiosyncratic nature of human beings.The Theory of At Least One keeps me humble. It also kept me from being overwhelmed by the machine-like and didactic certainty of the Marxist feminist thinkers who occupied my college classes for two years. (Everyone else didn't believe in anything much; I believed in something but became tongue-tied in exasperation when face to face with the bandwagon of socio-politico-economico determinism.) Anyway, the Theory of At Least One isn't an answer to higher education's insistence on external causation but it does represent, for me, a basic underlying belief in human individualism. (I'll leave discussions of free will and such for another time; to paraphrase Neo, I believe in free will because I want to.)

Anyway, the Theory of At Least One can be applied broadly or nit-pickily: at least one person today in Maine is glad it rained; at least one person is out there in Portland protesting something (despite the rain). At least one person somewhere today is thinking of watching all their Star Trek DVDs from the beginning. At least one person is vomiting at work. At least one person is wishing they could meet David Hasselhoff in person (really, I bet there is). I least one person is writing an angry letter to CBS News. At least one person has just decided that Tim Farrington is absolutely the best writer of the last fifty years. At least one person has just decided that he or she will never watch baseball again.

Every show ever made has at least one fan who thought it should never, never have gone off the air. Every book ever written has at least one reader who cried and wished it would never, never go out of print. Every actor has at least one fan. Every episode has at least one detractor and one enthusiast. And so on and so forth.

At least one person will read this blog. (It's a hopeful kind of philosophy.)