http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeasuringTheMarigolds



Measuring the Marigolds,

You and your arithmetic,

Will certainly go far.



Inchworm, Inchworm,

Measuring the Marigolds,

Seems to me you'd stop and see,

How beautiful they are." Frank Loesser, "The Inch Worm" from the musical , "The Inch Worm" from the musical Hans Christian Andersen (1952) "Inchworm, Inchworm,Measuring the Marigolds,You and your arithmetic,Will certainly go far.Inchworm, Inchworm,Measuring the Marigolds,Seems to me you'd stop and see,How beautiful they are."

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This is the attitude that trying too hard to understand something prevents one from appreciating its beauty. It implies that appreciation is a feeling, not a number, and that reducing the divinely incomprehensible to the mundanely complex isn't just tedious and hard, it's fundamentally wrong.

This trope is, at heart, a reaction against hyper-intellectualism; fear and frustration with assigning a number or a scientific name to everything from rainbows to emotions. It could be summed up as "put away your calculator and enjoy the beautiful sunrise". It can appear anti-intellectual because it can imply that only people that don't know anything about a subject can appreciate it.

Naturally, experts in the given subject are repulsed by this idea. Their understanding is never questioned, just their ability to appreciate it. Nobody has ever, for instance, advocated fielding Generals who know absolutely nothing about planning, logistics, strategy, or tactics but feel like they have deep psycho-spiritual connections with warfare. Experts that fully understand their field are actually very attuned to its beauty. You rarely, after all, spend a big chunk of time becoming an expert in something you don't appreciate. You can marvel at the visual beauty of a rainbow and be awed by the complex and delicate interplay of factors that allow it to exist.

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Related tropes: This is a major gripe that Romanticism has against Enlightenment, and is the reason Doing In the Wizard isn't kindly looked upon. Doing In the Scientist is more its style. See Straw Vulcan, Hollywood Atheist, and Mother Nature, Father Science. One manifestation of this is Don't Explain the Joke. Compare Centipede's Dilemma, and Don't Think, Feel.

Compare/contrast Anti-Nihilist, Awesomeness by Analysis, Enlightenment Superpowers, Emotion Suppression, Formula for the Unformulable, Geeky Turn-On, and especially The World Is Just Awesome for all the beauty missed by those who cannot see the pretty numbers in the page image.

Has nothing to do with the Otaku Surrogate character from Questionable Content, or with the play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Elric is usually a straight example but his stance is ultimately complicated. He used it to justify his anti-god stance in the first story arc. "Alchemists are scientists, so we don't believe in vague things like God. He hates me, incidentally." It's taken to one extreme in the final chapter/episode, where Ed turns a marriage proposal into a discussion about the properties of alchemy, which Winry lampshades by calling him out on. Immediately after a baby is born, his reaction is to scream "That's awesome! LIFE IS AWESOME!!!" Instead of talking about chemicals or instincts or anything like that. In one of the omakes. Mei Chan: Birds are so lucky...they can fly wherever they want, I wish I could be a bird.

Edward: A bird? That's lame. If you were a bird, you'd have flimsy hollow bones, and your brain would be the size of a pea. Not to mention the fact that you would be constantly crapping in mid-air to keep your weight down. Why would you want to be an animal like that?

Mei Chan: Mr. Edward, you're not very popular with girls, are you?

Edward: That's ridiculous! How could an intellectual like me not be popular!

This trope is the entire premise of Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it. Yukimura and Himuro are obsessed with quantifying everything they can, most importantly the things that make up romantic love.

In Yotsuba&!, Asagi shows Yotsuba that the tsukitsukiboushi making the onomatopoetic chirps heard in late-summer are cicadas, and not summer-ending fairies as she believed. However, Yotsuba is excited to learn something new and eagerly spreads the word that cicadas are cicadas!

Hajime in I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying lists off the tired plot and clichés in a movie he just saw, while his wife stands there, saying she enjoyed it and is bewildered that someone would even think about stuff like that. It's semi-justified since he was going to post a review on his blog later.

The Steins;Gate 0 theme "Fatima" alternately says that God Is Evil or that there is no God, implying that both possibilities are equally depressing. It underlines the protagonist's disillusionment from his failure to save Kurisu ; morality may be on his side, but causality is not.

Is overwriting all the A mundane universeIs overwriting all the values I know

Comic Books

One Fantastic Four story had a villain steal not the intelligence, but the creativity of Reed Richards, who is regarded as one of the most intelligent men in the Marvel Universe. He found himself shocked to discover that he couldn't even stare at a flower without being hit by the sheer sense of wonder Richards feels at the existence of all things!

Watchmen Dr. Manhattan finds wonder in such miracles as the bonding of atoms and the formation of mountains and continents but doesn't hold any regard for life itself (mostly because he thinks he knows everything life has to offer). In fact, he only starts to love life again when he analyzes just how completely and utterly improbable (to the point of it almost being a statistical impossibility) daily life is. Dan Dreiburg, AKA Nite Owl II, mentions this effect in passing in one of the supplemental pieces. He found he was losing his awe for owls in studying them until a chance encounter with a hunting owl brought his fascination back.

Green Lantern: Krona's stories often involve this trope. Coupled with his trademark impatience, it has led him to stumble on disaster after disaster because, he insists on quantifying and qualifying everything, and is especially devoted to having a meaningful conversation with the sentience of the universe. The few times he's granted his wish, he is chided for his simplistic approach and rebuffed for his ignorance.

Played with during a Spider-Man arc where Spider-Man, having temporarily lost his spider-senses, agreed to let Shang Chi train him in martial arts to compensate. Spider-Man was able to grasp the scientific aspects of Shang Chi's teaching but struggled a bit with the philosophical aspects. Spider-Man: I think I've got this. It's mass, acceleration, leverage and a knowledge of human biology. That's science, and I'm great at science.

Shang Chi: No, Spider-Man, it is so much more. This is no mere application of brute force. It is an art, and an expression of the self.

Spider-Man: What if most of myself is science?

The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye: The Functionist Council are a disturbed version. They and Six-of-Twelve, in particular, are of the belief that every living thing must serve a purpose, including animals and even moons, and are utterly obsessed with finding that purpose. Things that don't serve a purpose get removed or altered until they do serve a purpose.

Comic Strips

One B.C. character (probably Thor) neatly torpedoed his own chances of getting lucky by responding to a comment on the beauty of the moon rising by saying it's an illusion caused by the Earth's rotation. Cue him shouting at the retreating Cute Chick, "BUT IT IS STILL ROMANTIC, OH SOOOO ROMANTIC!" in a futile effort to recover the magic.

Referenced in the FoxTrot arc where Andy becomes obsessed with the film Titanic (1997), to the point that Roger worries about her. Jason begins describing production trivia to her ("Did you know the scenes with everyone drowning was filmed in a heated indoor pool, and their foggy breath was added by computers?" and so on). Andy accuses Jason of trying to ruin her enjoyment of the film. The final panel has Jason telling Roger, "She's onto us. Do I still get paid?"

Parodied in an early Garfield strip. After hearing Jon's farmer brother Doc Boy explain how potato chips are made, Garfield complains that knowing where food comes from means all the magic is gone.

Fan Works

Films — Live-Action

In the Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey Jr., he's shown to be doing the Sherlock Scan at all times instinctively, not even trying. He's also shown to be enraptured by the sciences (especially forensics) and CAN see and enjoy the beauty in the world around him. He just likes reducing it to the bare facts to tweak those around him, especially Watson.

Played with in Short Circuit. Toward the end of the film, Newton is trying to figure out if Number 5 has really "come alive." He makes a Rorschach blot with paper and tomato soup, trying to see if Number 5 sees past the scientific to see the marigolds. It is foreshadowed earlier in the film that Number 5 has this capacity: though he regurgitates scientific information at the drop of a hat, he is also able to see abstract shapes in clouds, rather than just dismissing them as pockets of water vapor. Newton Crosby: Number 5, What do you make of this?

Number 5: Hmmm... Wood pulp, plant — vegetable — tomato, water, salt, monosodium glutamate...

Newton Crosby: [disappointed] Okay, thank you. Now you're talking like a robot.

[beat]

Number 5: ...and resemble - look like - butterfly, bird, maple leaf! Number 5, What do you make of this?Hmmm... Wood pulp, plant — vegetable — tomato, water, salt, monosodium glutamate...[disappointed] Okay, thank you. Now you're talking like a robot....and resemble - look like - butterfly, bird, maple leaf!

The plot of Dead Poets Society revolves around a prep school English teacher's efforts to teach his students simply to enjoy poetry, rather than learn it via textbook. Notably, the introduction to their textbook features the author instructing readers on how to determine the quality of a poem by creating a line graph. Keating considers it ridiculous because a poem's greatness and impact are subjective to the reader and can't be measured.

The Trope Namer is Hans Christian Andersen (1952). The song "The Inch Worm" (quoted above) is about how the inchworm is too busy measuring the marigolds to notice their beauty.

The Sun Is Also A Star: Discussed when Natasha tells Daniel if something isn't scientifically shown it can't be a fact, and thus she doesn't believe in things like fate. She admits this is something that turns lots of people off (him included) since they feel it saps life of meaning, but to her that isn't the case.

Literature

Live-Action TV

Meta

Music

The song Miracles angrily renounces anything scientific, instead referring to natural processes as "miracles", such as feeding pelicans and the workings of magnets. Magnets - Mormons have got you covered The SNL parody "Magical Mysteries" takes things even further, featuring lines like "What is Alaska? Who is Brazil? Isn't a volcano just an angry hill?" LoadingReadyRun made a full rebuttal.

Coldplay's song "The Scientist": I was just guessing at numbers and figures

Pulling the puzzles apart

Questions of science, science and progress

Do not speak as loud as my heart

Many a music teacher has suggested to his or her pupils that they dedicate time to learn basic music theory, as it will help them write music. Nearly as many music teachers have been saddened to hear their students claim that they "don't want to learn a bunch of rules that [they] have to follow." This assumes that music theory is a set of rules that must be followed. When told that music theory is more a way to analyze the writing and composition of music, these pupils are usually dismissive, citing, to some degree or another, this trope. If you haven't heard of the rules, you've also never asked yourself questions such as: "Am I already following these rules? Should I be? What is each rule trying to prevent? How do people get away with breaking each rule?" Music theory is to writing music as a map is to wandering; you can still put it away and enjoy the scenery. Having one just helps you know if you're going in circles, and lets you reach places far enough away from your home that you wouldn't have stumbled upon them otherwise. What's sad is that this perception might have held back the musical talents of many many budding musicians.

Tom Glazer wrote "Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)" in 1959. The long-forgotten song was later covered by They Might Be Giants, and their children's educational CD "Here Comes Science" includes an updated version, "Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)". Justified in that these songs are meant to both educate and entertain, (and do both splendidly).

As a judge on The Sing-Off, Ben Folds is enjoying the show on more levels than the rest of us as he elaborates the exact technical merits of each performance. He looks giddy as he explains how the three-part harmony comes together or points out the arrangement of events every four to eight bars.

Rilo Kiley's song "Science Vs. Romance" possibly references this: "I used to think, if I could realize I'd die, then I would be a lot nicer," and "Used to believe, in a lot more. Now I just see straight ahead". However, it's about a scientist trying to regain his feelings again, evidenced by the line "Facts vs. romance, you go and call yourself the boss, but we're not robots inside a grid."''

Flaming Lips songs from the "Clouds Taste Metalic" and "The Soft Bulletin" era, are often occupied with demonstrating the beauty that lies between emotions and chemistry. Most notably are When You Smile: "Every single molecule is right, when /All of the subatomic pieces come together/ and unfold themselves in a second" and the title of the song "What Is the Light?" ("An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical [In Our Brains] by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love Is the Same Chemical That Caused the "Big Bang" That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe").

The Angel and Robot Show/Phenomenaut's It's Only Chemical flipflops between being played straight (You might think this song is special with the way it makes you feel, but it's not/It's only chemical) and being a subversion, as it also applies to the bad emotions you go through in life - and that emotions just being chemicals is a good thing (It's better that way).

Tabletop Games

Overuse of this theme was one of the many criticisms leveled at the Old World of Darkness games. Mage: The Ascension had the Technocracy, who started out as an evil conspiracy combining the worst features of Nineteen Eighty Four, the Agents from The Matrix, every Government Conspiracy ever, and an especially boring math class. (They received a lot of Character Development as the game-line went on.) Changeling: The Dreaming characters were vulnerable to "Banality", which in practice meant that inhaling while too close to an accountant could harm or even destroy their souls. It was also inconsistent on this point, as for every book that treated a slide rule as just as bad as cold iron, there was a sourcebook where the nockers pointed out it was the moon landing that resulted in the biggest rush of Glamour most changelings had seen in their lifetimes, or a sample boggan accountant who resisted Banality through his profession because he took joy in numbers. The 20th anniversary edition cleared this this up, along with a lot of the other strange tonal dissonances in the original. In C20, exploring the wonders of the natural world through science and marveling at every new discovery are considered a perfectly valid source of Glamour, and Banality's creativity-stifling is a limiting force on science because it hampers technological innovation. Averted in the following quote from the Second Edition of Mage: The Ascension to sum up the attitude of the Sons of Ether: "The beauty of science is not that it answers all the questions, but that with every answer, more questions arise." Then there's the Weaver in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, a cosmic force which is associated with both technological progress and stasis. While it tends to be perceived as a lesser threat than the obvious Big Bad that is the Wyrm, many of the non-Glass Walker Garou continue to look down on things like cities or computers. Then it's further suggested that the origin of the entire Crapsack World can be traced back to the Weaver, since its imprisonment of the Wyrm was what drove it insane to begin with.

Princess: The Hopeful: Defied by the Court of Diamonds. They are the Court who specfically value knowledge, reason, and science, but their signature emotions are curiosity and wonder, and a core part of their philosophy is that to understand the complex intricacy of the mechanisms that create a rainbow or the night sky only makes them more amazing.

Dungeons & Dragons: Early editions had comparatively fewer rules than later editions for character actions other than combat and spellcasting. Back then if, say, you wanted to throw your drink in a villain's face to blind him, jump from a balcony, swing on a chandelier, somersault through the air, land on your feet, and run out of the room, your DM would have to figure out exactly how that would work - probably an attack roll with a small penalty, some Dexterity rolls, and a decision about whether you've generally played your character as a guy who would do that kind of thing. Now, your GM has extensive rules for how far you can jump, how far you can move, how much damage you take when you fall, what difficulty the Acrobatics check should be based on your level and if you don't have an attack power that blinds (or at least stuns or dazes) you can forget the drink-throwing having any useful effect. The new version makes everything much more standardized, predictable, easy to run, and fair, but many old-timers argue that the "rules instead of rulings" style of modern editions take all the heroism and excitement out of the game. 4th Edition included a SPECIFIC list and a table, devoted to 'actions the rules don't cover'...So the GM can EASILY get a ruling for you doing cool shit. (Especially "I want to swing from a chandelier and hit them!") Unfortunately, this same table makes sure that "cool shit" will always be less effective than your default attacks, thus punishing people trying to be creative. The original DMG spelled out that players with original ideas should be "rewarded" for that with a lower chance of success. 5th Edition appears to be heading back into the realm of simplicity over simulationism. If you want to try a cool stunt that's not explicitly outlined in the handbook, all the DM has to do is make up his/her mind on what sort of check is necessary, how difficult it ought to be given the circumstances, and then ask you to roll it. The designers of the edition even outright advocate "rulings over rules" in social media, an inversion of the phrase grognards use to describe the newer editions that preceded it.



Theater

In defiance of this trope, Penn & Teller have turned exposing the inner workings of stage magic into an art. Their version of the Saw a Woman in Half trick, "Blast Off/Lift Off of Love" where Teller would climb into a complex contraption of interconnected boxes and poke his head and limbs out in various impossible-seeming configurations while Penn manipulated and rearranged the boxes, all set to music in a sort of magic-trick-cum-dance-routine. It was impressive but not so different from anything you'd see at a magic show. Then they turn the entire contraption around to show that its backside is transparent and do the entire routine again so that the audience can see just exactly how much skill and dexterity the trick required, particularly from Teller. It is amazing. There's also their version of the cups and balls trick, where it's first shown conventionally, and again, showing all of the setup, with clear plastic cups, and explaining all of the intermediary steps . Their expose on pretty much of all the tricks of the trade, Sleight of Hand .

The musical adaptation of The Snow Queen has Kai, the boy taken by the queen, only find mathematical equations and numbers purer than his dirty city, rejecting the time he and Gerta (the protagonist) spent together as "childish" and dismissing her as "too stupid to understand". He's used by the Queen to solve mathematical equations: the biggest one of them all is solving eternity. Gerta brings him back from cold rationality with love, and love is the answer to eternity .

Video Games

Mass Effect 2: Multiple: Mordin Solus, the very model of a scientist Salarian. He shows extreme passion for his beliefs and work and has a deep appreciation of the arts. He sees the Collectors as a mockery of the Protheans, as the heart and soul of their race have long since been lost. Mordin : Protheans already dead. Collectors just final insult. No organs; replaced by tech. No culture; replaced by tech! No soul; replaced by tech! He admits that after working on the Genophage, which at the time he logically saw as the correct choice, the guilt drove him to seek spiritual answers. He didn't find any that satisfied his guilt, but he does retain a spiritual side by the time you meet him. The trope was invoked for laughs in the third game when he said he'd like to retire to a beach somewhere and collect seashells, only to admit he'd probably run tests on them out of boredom.

Pokémon Black and White: N accuses Professor Juniper of "arbitrarily measuring and categorizing Pokémon without appreciating them". If you were reading Juniper's intro speech in the game's prologue, you'd know this isn't the case. It's a mite hypocritical of N when he seems to view everything in terms of equations and formulas himself, even as it's clear that he has a deep appreciation for Pokémon.

Riviera: The Promised Land: Ledah gave up his emotions to become a Grim Angel so he sounds like he's a straight example. The truth is the opposite; he's very passionate about his religion.

Kingdom Hearts: The villain of the series - Xehanort and his various incarnations - are in a sense a perfect example of this trope. He's not out to seek power and control like any other villain would, rather he considers himself a seeker of knowledge and is willing to do anything and everything to understand the true nature of the Heart, even if it means many people suffer in the process. Sora puts it best in Dream Drop Distance. Sora: Just stop it! You treat people's hearts like bottles on a shelf, but they're not! Ansem The Wise also strove to research and understand how the heart worked, but unlike Xehanort, he eventually came to understand how foolish this was and worked to atone for the trouble that his efforts caused.

Subverted and averted by Curie in Fallout 4. As a Miss Nanny robot, she is constrained by her analytical programming and wants the creative spark that a human mind can give her. Once she's given the opportunity by being uploaded into a synth body, Curie finds that her preinstalled knowledge base doesn't help her to deal with the emotions she can now feel, but she's so enthralled by experiencing them that she doesn't feel the need to fully understand the How and Why.

Web Comics

Gunnerkrigg Court, The animals of Gillitie Wood think the Court scientists' study of magic makes it less beautiful. Conversely, many Court scientists feel that refusing to even attempt to explain how things work is a disservice to the beauty of their complexity.

xkcd is an inversion of this. It often talks of math and science with an infectious sense of awe and giddiness, demonstrated here.

Questionable Content: Clinton inverts it, arguing that you can't truly appreciate the marigolds until you've measured them.

Web Original

Western Animation

Real Life