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.
2001-01-05 - 07:37:27
Today's entry is a bit different. Its not about my day, its about my thoughts in the shower and getting dressed this morning. A slice of my mental life.
I started off thinking about the use of the word Snarking current with fruheads. It means mocking others. Not a good definition at all. It has nothing to do with the wonderful poem, one of the cornerstones of my literary universe. It should mean embarking on a fanciful, hopeless quest. The kind of thing that totally appeals to me of course. Lewis Carroll was a total "Us." I have friends who dismiss him as a pedophile they can't be more wrong. For all his associations there is no evidence he ever took advantage of any child. His relationship with them was of a different sort. Martin Gardner points out that Carroll was a Stutterer and that he didn't stutter in front of children. That this alone would explain his fondness for their company. I think it goes deeper than that, that that is just an outer manifestation of what was happening in his mind. Perhaps I'm just projecting but to me the question is why didn't he stutter? He was such an outsider, his books scream this. He was not comfortable in the world of adults. Being with Children was his haven. In Marathon Man Olivier Tortures Dustin Hoffman by attacking his cavities then makes the pain go away with Oil of Clove. Being with little girls was Carroll's oil of clove. I know exactly how that feels, my oil can me my music, my art ,or my friends. There are people I can be with who remove all the pain and I think I have the privilege of doing the same for others. Tolkien is one of my favourite authors but I have just realized now much of an "us" he was. He called humans the guests. A race not really of this world. The best thing he ever wrote was not the Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings but part of the Silmarillion. Its the Lay of Leithen, Release from Bondage. Now why it is called that has always been a mystery but I have my own ideas. It tells the story of Beren and Luthien. This story was so central to him that on the his wife's gravestone it says Luthien and on his it says Beren. Now Luthien was the daughter of Thingol, one of the mightiest of Elves and Melian of the Maia, one of the Angelic order of beings that predate the world. Beren was a mortal man of the first House of Men to wander into the west of Middle Earth. Thingol did not think that Beren was worthy to marry Luthien and said he could only marry her if he brought as a bridepiece a silmaril. Silmarils were the great jewels that Feanor the greatest but proudest of all elves created. They shined with the light of the Two Trees. Morgoth, the great enemy, poisoned the two trees and stole the silmarils and in the process killed Feanor's father. Feanor and the Noldor forsook the blessed realm to make war on Morgoth to retreave them. All their power proved fruitless agains morgoth yet this was the task that Thingol set Beren. Beren with the help of Luthien did retrieve a Silmaril at the cost of Beren's hand. Beren died soon thereafter. Luthien's body died of grief but being an immortal elf she would be reborn. She went to the halls of Mandos and there sang the song of Luthien. "The song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear... For Luthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar (elves) and the grief of Men... And mandos was moved to pity , who never before was so moved, nor has been since." Luthien and Beren were returned to middle earth but as mortals. Luthien had given up her immortality and when she died she died indeed and left the circles of the world. When Beren Died she died soon thereafter and they were free of the world. This is the release from bondage. Death was the "Gift of Man" until it was perverted by Morgoth and became the "Doom of Man." Beren and Luthien were free from that fear.
Right after thinking that it dawned on me that this would make a good diary entry so that's it or i"d start repeating myself.
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 2001-01-05
