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 19, 2004 - 2:27 a.m.
Today was a compact day of bridge, another fast pairs game with Roy. We actually scored today, coming in first in our section during the first session. The second session was a disaster. On the bright side I did get a foot long hot dog from the Carnegie Deli during the 20 minute break between sessions.
I’ve been to four Nationals and I think this is the one I did the worst in. The last two I went to in Albuquerque and Boston I did quite well in. this one I ended up with less than two points total.
More importantly I didn’t like the way I behaved towards Roy today. I just kept losing it and getting on him far to hard for his mistakes. That made him nervous so of course he made more mistakes, not less. I used to do that more often but I’ve been far more under control in recent years. I don’t really know what snapped. I don’t like when I behave like that. I am really glad that Roy took it as well as he did. I try hard to accept my friends’ faults and I’m glad when they accept mine. Where I get in a bind is when the fault I’m trying to tolerate is my friend not tolerating my fault.
Tonight I spoke to two people I haven’t spoken to in ages, Stacey and Lauren. I called Stacey because she isn’t going to FRFF so I won’t be able to speak to her there. I’m guessing that was our first real conversation since at least February, maybe longer. I didn’t even have her new phone number till a few days ago. I really needed to catch up with her and see how her life in Kingston is going. Maybe after Leah moves to Toronto I’ll make a trip with stops in Toronto and Kingston, circumnavigating Lake Ontario.
Shortly after getting off the phone with Stacey Lauren called. It has been even longer since I spoke to her. I think it might be over a year. I know we didn’t speak on my birthday last year or hers this year. We had our usual random conversation, talking about things from the New York Dolls to Spamalot to Java programming. Lauren told me she is working in Java now, I said, “that’s a hell of a commute.” It’s sad isn’t it?
For reasons that I don’t remember I started thinking about the film Beneath the Planet of the Apes in the shower this morning. It isn’t a great film, I’m not even sure if I’d call it good. It did scare the hell out of me when I first saw it. The part that was the scariest for me was when the human mutants took off their false faces and revealed their true ugliness.
It is the kind of thing that I like writing mock analyses of. Ira and I interpreted Superman II as an exploration of the conflicts between capitalism, communism, and feudalism represented by Superman, the Kryptonian villains, and Lex Luther respectively.
I was wondering if in BtPofA this was supposed to be symbolic of people’s inner corruption. It is a heavy handed metaphor but I don’t think they were trying for subtlety.
I don’t view my inner self as hideous. I guess that’s a good thing. Now things start getting strange. I started thinking about the way I do view my inner self. First I started seeing a brain but then it became something more akin to a cauliflower. Parts of the cauliflower were healthy, they were glistening and beautiful. Other parts were diseased and looked like they had been burnt or simply left to wither.
I can reveal my inner self to hardly anyone. When I can it has a good effect. They can exfoliate some of the cinders leaving the healthy parts which will grow into the newly freed space.
The hard part is putting this into words, all my thoughts were visual. I hope you can see it.
Before I go I guess I should mention that today (Monday) is my birthday. I’m spending the afternoon with my mother, sister, Alison, and my nephew, Max. I changed my mind and I’m going to try and squeeze in the Met game with Alan tomorrow night unless it rains. That means I’ll have to squeeze my FRFF shopping and preparation into Tuesday night.
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 19, 2004
