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.
2001-10-21 - 9:44 p.m.
I didn't do anything this weekend. That's not like me. I would have gone to see the Gorilla Rep's The Death of King Arthur again if Marti could have made it. She had schoolwork to do though. Perhaps it is a good thing, it game me a chance to finish grading my tests. I give my students a second chance to answer the questions they got wrong the first time. They do it at home and they are allowed to work with each other and even ask for help from others. You'd figure that they would get them right this time. It is basically an open book test that they are allowed to cheat on. They average getting less than half the questions right. One person didn't get one question right. They also can't follow directions. I tell them to write the redone questions on separate sheets of paper, to staple them, and then to fold them back into the test booklet. Hardly anyone bothered stapling them, or clipping them. Some people redid it in the booklet so I had to cut those pages out and staple them so I could have them in front of me as I looked at their original test. One person redid the entire test so I had to hunt through their book finding what they got wrong the first time and only give them credit on those. The basic problem is they don't take it seriously. I would so love to have students like my friends who aren't good in math: They'd all be getting 'A's and having fun too.
At least it kept me busy. I wish I could find my HTML book. Learning HTML would make keep me happy for a while. It would keep my mind of other things.
I just checked; I didn't win the Lotto drawing from last Wednesday.
This fits in well with what I was going to write about. The other day I started thinking about what I'd do if I were rich. The thing that brought this on was wishing I had a library. A room devoted to books. I have lots of books and they are all over the place. It would be so nice to have them all on nice shelves. I always imagine it as wall to ceiling built in shelves with that ladder on a runner to get to the ones on top. I love the way that looks. If I had all that space and the money I could really indulge myself. I already have multiple editions of the works of Tolkien and Cabell; I'd love to have all the editions. If anyone reading this ever gets rich and wants to give me a perfect present get me an unrevised edition of the Hobbit; Tolkien rewrote sections of it when Lord of the Rings came out. That is my holy grail of books; others that I'd love are first editions of the works of Lovecraft, and all the illustrated Cabell books. I do have the complete Storisende editions of Cabell, which was included all his final revisions. I have a signed set. It was the last thing I bought with my jeopardy money.
Now what else would I do with my money? First thing I'd do is get a place to live. My primary residence would be a townhouse or a condo on the upper west side. I'd love an apartment in the Dakota that is my first choice. I'd have one with lots of room for visitors. If Leah went to school in New York she could have her own room. I'd have a music room. One with the best stereo system with the walls acoustically designed. There would be places to sit in the perfect acoustic places in the room. A screening room for films would be nice too.
I used to want an expensive car but now I worry about a Rolls or a Porsche being environmentally unfriendly. I'm sure I can find some compromise between luxury and my conscience though.
I'd like a second home in the mountains. What I really want is an observatory on top of a mountain. I'd love to have my own telescope and dome to watch the stars with. Even without a telescope the site of the stars on a clear night in the mountains, away from city lights is awe-inspiring.
I would also love to travel. I'd take the grand tour of Europe. Go on a Safari to Africa. Maybe even a trip to Antarctica.
I'd love to own my own sailboat too. One that was big enough to take out into the ocean for long trips. Perhaps I'd go up to the Maritime Provinces in it.
Finally of course I'd take care of my friends and family. No one would have to worry about money for college or doctors for themselves or their kids.
So that's it. My dreams are not the same as Tevye's but to each his own.
Of course I'd trade all of that in for a run down apartment and my old car if I had someone to share them with.
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 2001-10-21
