With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
July 02, 2004 - 12:33 a.m.
While cleaning my blender today a blade snapped off. I’m glad that didn’t happen when I was using it to make my slimfast, I might have swallowed it by accident. That led to my excitement for the day, buying a new blender. Yes I’m a wild man. I could have gone out tonight to see Black 47 but I’ve been going out a lot and I’ll be going out the next three nights so I wanted a night off.
I could just make this the entire entry but I think I’ll go into the vault instead. When I was young I’d find a favorite author then read every single book by him then move on.
The first author I obsessed on was Jules Verne. I read every book of his that was in the library and bought Journey to the Center of the Earth. Next up was H.G. Wells. He was easy to get through as Seven of his “Science Romances” were included in one large book. I started with the Time Machine, that I bought through the school book club, then read the omnibus volume. Those two set my taste for years. I’ve been a fan of Science Fiction ever since. Shortly after I got through Wells I discovered Tolkien. Now he was different, at the time he had only two books published, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, so my obsession became one of rereading rather than reading all his books.
Around the same time I discovered Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. They were both far more prolific than the others and it took me from about the seventh grade through my freshman year of college to read all their works. They both kept writing after that and I’d read the books as they came out.
I think everyone knows the next author on my Hit Parade, James Branch Cabell. Nobody has really been able to crack my pantheon since then. Yes I’ve read everything I could by several authors, particularly H.P. Lovecraft, Larry Niven, and Terry Pratchett but there was never a time that I’d say that one of those was my favorite author.
There are also a few authors that I didn’t read everything by that do make my list of favorites. The two that come to mind are Doestoyevsky and Dickens. Then there was my thing of epic poetry, Homer, Dante, Milton, The Neibelungalied, and the Elder Edda.
All those authors have left their mark on me but one that I’ve been noticing lately is Asimov. His style is very different that most of the writers I’ve admired since then. They tended to use language subtly. Asimov prided himself on his clarity. He compared other styles to stain glassed windows while his was crystal clear glass.
Asimov of course is best known for his Science Fiction but he also wrote Science non-fiction, history, mysteries, a book explaining biblical references, and one on Shakespeare. In my humble opinion the best things he wrote were his weekly essays in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The title of his column was Science but he wrote on whatever caught his fancy. I have borrowed one his affections from that series here. Have any of my Gentle Readers caught it? It is referring to you as my Gentle Readers. More than that though he influenced my way of thinking. Rationality became my touchstone. One of his essays I think should be required reading, it was on the six security beliefs. I was going to try and remember them myself but I have found them online in a newsletter.
- There exist supernatural forces that can be cajoled or forced into protecting mankind.
- There is no such thing, really, as death.
- There is some purpose to the Universe.
- Individuals have special powers that will enable them to get something for nothing.
- You are better than the next fellow.
- If anything goes wrong, it's not one's own fault.
The real point of the list is not to refute others but to give yourself pause before you start believing something that falls into one of those categories. These are beliefs that people have an emotional vested interested in so must be given higher scrutiny.
He wrote about so many other things. I learned so much of the science I know from him. He also wrote about politics. Where would you think he stood politically? He was to the far left. One great article that I remember well was on cities and how the right attacked cities as a surrogate for attacking blacks which they could no longer openly do. That kind of thing still goes on today.
I am sure that Asimov affected my world outlook in ways I am totally unaware. I wasn’t very fond of the fiction he wrote in the last years of his life. I think he was just cashing in. He stopped writing stories in the Foundation Series because he thought it would become impossible for them to remain consistent. He went back and wrote more and I did find them riddled with inconsistencies. That doesn’t negate how great the originals were.
I got to meet him a number of times. He was an extraordinary public speaker and was always easy to approach after his talks.
I also called him on the phone once. He actually had his home number listed in the Manhattan phone book. Now I would never have bothered him on my own, it was Aubrey’s doing. I had just told Aubrey that Asimov had mad a logical error in one of his mysteries. It came down to the fact that saying The choices are A or B does not exclude the possibility that both A and B are true. Aubrey then called up Asimov and handed me the phone so I could tell him. Asimov sounded as if the phone woke him up but he was gracious and accepting of the criticism.
Now for the first time they are making a major motion picture based on one of his works, I Robot and it is a travesty, totally contrary to Asimov’s beliefs and values. I wonder if his estate approved of it or if he had sold the rights earlier. I think that is probably what happened. I know he sold the rights to lots of his stories and I don’t think he was concerned with maintaining artistic control.
I’ve written so much about Cabell and Tolkien it is about time that I gave Asimov his due. He will always be in my pantheon.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile July 02, 2004
