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Citius Mag Followed Me On Instagram And My Life Instantly Got Better

By Eric Senseman

August 8, 2018

Citius Mag Followed Me On Instagram And My Life Instantly Got Better

or

The Principle Of Causation As Told By Eric Senseman

or

Citius Mag Will Improve Your Life

or

An Idiot’s Guide To Causation: The Citius Mag Edition


Citius Mag recently followed me on Instagram and my life instantly got better.

We’re talking about cause and effect here. Citius Mag made my life better—caused positive changes in my life—and I can explain exactly how and why it happened. It could happen to you, too. Let me explain the principle of causation.

I don’t want this to turn into a philosophical debate about causality so, before we get too far, let’s get one thing straight: I know more about cause and effect than you do. It’s true. I’ve read David Hume’s seminal work, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and I once wrote a paper in response to P.F. Strawson’s kickass paper called “Causality and Explanation”. I’m even well versed in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and I took a class from the great Elliott Sober. When it comes to causation those guys know what they’re talking about and, therefore, I know what I’m talking about. But I’m not pretentious like those guys. I read those books and wrote those papers and took those classes when I got my master’s degree in philosophy. I didn’t get a Ph.D. but I also didn’t stop with merely a bachelor’s degree—I stayed in academic philosophy just long enough to sound smarter than you without being pretentious. *

(* The esteemed satirist and running critic, Dakota Jones, once described my level of schooling and knowledge in this way but I usually don’t give him credit for it. I am by no means giving him credit now.)

So, when I say that Citius Mag followed me on Instagram and my life instantly got better, I mean that Citius Mag caused my quality of life to go up and I know what I’m talking about so don’t question me. And if you think I’m being pretentious then read the previous paragraph in which I make it unequivocally clear that that would be impossible.

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way I can explain how everything in my life turned around the minute Citius Mag followed me on Instagram.

I was sitting on the toilet taking a dump and I got out my phone to look at Instagram. I was at work and I do this a lot at work to waste time. I recommend that everyone do this. It makes for a great opportunity to steal company time without being culpable. Your boss can’t question the amount of time you spend in the bathroom because that’s personal and she’s legally prohibited from questioning you about personal matters or else you can sue the company for all its worth.2**

(** I know nothing about law and I have no idea if this is true.)

Anyway, when I opened Instagram I had a notification. I almost dropped my phone into a pile of my own shit. 3*** It read: “citiusmag started following you”.

(*** If you flush before you finish trolling social media, it indicates that you’re done with your business. Don’t flush until you’re ready to leave the bathroom.)

Let’s take a moment to weigh the gravity of this life achievement. Citius Mag, as everyone reading this knows, is the world’s greatest running publication. If everyone read Citius Mag every day, unicorns would exist. **** It’s the biggest deal in running since Sir Roger Bannister ran a mile in less than four minutes. So, all of the sudden, the Michael Jordan of running publications is following me. At that moment, as I sat on the toilet looking at my phone while avoiding a job that I hate, I thought my life could never get better. Then it did.

(**** I implore you to prove me wrong on this point. You won’t.)

I walked out of the bathroom and my boss—the owner of the company that I work for—told me he was retiring. If I learned enough to be smart without being pretentious, my boss is the exact opposite. He learned enough to be super dumb and really pretentious and he’s always hated me because he knows I sound way smarter than him. Not only is he retiring, he tells me, but he says that I’ll get one-hundred percent ownership of the company. I instantly became a millionaire.

Then my girlfriend called me. She has always said that she’ll never marry me in a million years because marriage is a farcical fabrication built on empty promises, and it has no basis in reality, and it’s a stupid, manmade institution filled with baseless principles and why would she want the government involved in her relationship, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam. Well, she called me and said she wanted to get married that afternoon at the courthouse. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, she threw out all of her long-held beliefs. I was married that night.

At this point I was so overwhelmed by these life improvements that I had to boast to the world about the unlikely chain of cause-and-effect that started with Citius Mag following me on Instagram. I needed to brag about this right away and I couldn’t just call every person I know one by one. That wouldn’t give my achievement the attention it deserved. I had to post on Twitter. So, I took a screenshot of the notification and tweeted about my triumph. You’ll never guess what happened next.

Citius Mag contacted me and asked me to write this article! I thought I was dreaming. The conditions were implicit but clear. They knew the strength of their social media presence and the impact it would have on my life. They knew I would recognize and appreciate the potency of their causal powers because they knew that I was informed about causality and that I could talk about it in an unpretentious way. I had to explain my situation to a captivate audience and I had to make it clear that this wasn’t a one-time thing.

You see, you, too, can instantly improve your life. Get Citius Mag to follow you on social media. How can you get Citius Mag to follow you on social media? First, follow Citius Mag. Then, get a job that you hate. Wait until you’re sitting on the can—long past the point that you should be—avoiding your dumb job while searching for fulfillment and happiness on social media. Get out your phone and check your social media accounts. The causal chain will be set in motion and you’ll be one notification away from life-altering changes and a steaming hot pile of pure bliss.

That’s how the principle of causation works.

Eric Senseman

At some future time, Eric might be regarded as an esteemed running journalist. That recognition will not be bestowed because of his writing skills or work ethic. He runs far, drinks lots, offers unsolicited running advise often, and criticizes the work of others using unproven and unfounded principles. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona but encourages nobody to move there because he wants the world-class trails to himself.