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.
2001-11-17 - 1:11 a.m.
I've been writing these entries late recently. I hope it isn't bringing the quality of the writing down too much.
I got a good reminder of my relative unimportance to some people today. I'm making a conscious effort not to dwell on it though. I've been working hard trying to make Carey feel less depressed. How would it look if I dwelt on this while telling her to do the opposite?
It helps a lot that I saw Lisa tonight. We went to see Harry Potter . You might have heard of the film. I think it has gotten a little publicity. I'm not going to ruin it for any of you and I'm not going to attempt to review it. I will say I liked it but it is not going to make my favorites list.
Harry Potter is not really one of my books. I've read the first one and will read the others but I don't need to read them. A few of the books that are my books are referenced in every entry of Wise Madness. The first is the source of my motto. If you look at the top of the page you'll see it says Mundus Vult Decipi, Latin for "the world wishes to be deceived. It is the motto of my ancestor of 24 generations ago, Dom Manuel the Redeemer. He is the progenitor of all the protagonists in the eighteen volume book, The Biography of Manuel . I think I actually take more after an ancestor, a certain pawnbroker, not listed in the official genealogy as someone else was actually married to my ancestress at the time. I've given the book about him to quite a few friends. Someday one of them might even read it.
The other one of my books to be found in every entry can be seen in the background picture. It is the Lord of the Rings . That of course is the movie that I MUST see. As bad Carey and I used to always say, if I could only see one movie the rest of my life it would be LOTR. That is cheating of course since it will seem to be three movies. It really isn't though, just as the book isn't three novels. It is one film that is so long that it must be shown in three parts.
I was noticed an interesting contrast between LOTR and Harry Potter of tonight. Harry is the chosen one from birth. He is special because he has inherent powers that are not learnt. He can fight off evil that no one else can as an infant and becomes the star Quiddich player without even having played the game. Frodo in LOTR and Bilbo in The Hobbit are exactly the opposite. They are totally ordinary to begin with. There is a passage in LOTR about Frodo that states this memorably.
' I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?'
Such questions cannot be answered, 'said Gandalf. 'you may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate.'
Frodo is has to learn to be a hero. Though never stated it does become clear why he was chosen. It is because of his resistance to corruption. He has no desire for power or dominion over others. That allows him to stay free of the ring's power till he is in the very heart of Sauron's realm. After the ring is destroyed his hobbit companions become important people in their home in the Shire. He is their leader but such rewards did not interest him. I can point out without giving too much away to the one person that hasn't read the book yet that Harry Potter does display a similar trait with an important consequence.
This making of the hero through a simple virtue and his learning heroism appeals to me more. I know that I can never be a powerful wizard; I can ponder whether I'm incorruptible or not though. I'm afraid I'm not. The ring would have gotten to me. That's not a disgrace though; it might have gotten to anyone but Frodo.
I started working on this poem yesterday. I didn't write it down of course and so now I'll try to reconstruct it. I hope that you get it. I would love some feedback on my poems. Do you think that any of my poems of the day should be put on my poetry page? Do you think that perhaps I should just get rid of my < a href = "http://www.fruhead.com/users/DrWhoFru/poetrycentral.html "> poetry page? You don't really have to answer that last question.
Rhyme with No Reason
Poems don't really have to rhyme.
Many people thing it's a waste of effort.
ABA is a popular form
That doesn't mean that it is the rule.
Alliteration is a lovely device.
Better than rhyming take my suggestion.
Poems are about meter and sound.
You don't need rhyming I have determined.
This poem could have consisted of rhyming couplets.
That would have been forced liked the giving birth to five babies.
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 2001-11-17
