I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
April 04, 2013 - 1:20 p.m.
I'll start with the routine before getting to the heavy stuff.
I was good yesterday and went to school to make up a practice test for the finite math class. That's not a little thing. It means two hours of traveling and as I haven't given a test like this before hours to write. Next time will be easier. After I wrote it I finally figured out a way or producing equations with two radicals where one of the solutions is spurious.
When I got home I wrote a press release for the benefit concert that the Grand Slambovians are doing for Lori not LORi and Rona not Wrona's school. It's my first press release. I don't know if it's any good but I didn't want professional feedback as I want it to be in my personal style. I might be wrong but I figured it helps to not look like every other press release.
Funny thing my life totally sucks now and I just got the terrible news about Aubrey but It still makes me feel better to look at my Fantasy Baseball league's site and see my team, your team too I hope, The Nashional Batnoses in first place. Sure we haven't had our draft but that make it even more impressive. I kept only two position players yet have 39 offensive points, all because of Chris Davis who in two games has gone 5 for 8 with 2 home runs and 7 RBIs. What makes it extra sweet is that I pay him only $0.70. I picked him last year as an undervalued player and was right. He hit 33 home runs last season.
On the pitching side I have 3 saves, nobody else has more than 1 and Yu Darvish pitched 8 2/3 innings of perfect baseball before allowing a hit. He was relieved then but kept the shutout and got the victory.
I still have most of the work to do on this year's draft but at least I know my "need to get" guy.
Sorry I have no fun food to tell you about.
Now to switch gears to something more somber, death. I am not morbid or death obsessed but I've thought and written about it quite a bit. Aubrey dying as brought it to my thoughts again. This actually comes out of my imaginary therapy session. I always run it through my head before I actually go to therapy.
First off; thanks to everyone that sent their condolences. It's a strange and wonderful thing that something as simple as posting "I'm sorry" as a comment on Facebook, as so many of you did, can help. Some people wrote more but that or the equivalent is what most people say and it is enough. It has no real information content. That's not the purpose. It's a wolf howl, not a derogation but praise. It says, "You are part of the pack. You are not alone." "Thank you," is my howl. It's how the pack stays together. It is how the pack stays a pack. It isn't saying, "Aubrey's dead." It's saying "You are alive and one of us." We all need to be reminded of that.
What do we mourn when someone dies? How can I feel bad for Aubrey? He isn't suffering. He is beyond suffering. He is beyond anything. He has ceased to exist. Part of the reason people believe in an afterlife is that it is so hard to comprehend not existing. Try it now, Imagine being dead. Are you picturing yourself in a coffin? That's not what it's like. You don't experience being in the coffin. You don't experience anything. The best handle I've been able to put on it is that it's just like before you were born? What was it like then? It's a meaningless question. It wasn't like anything. There was no you there to not exist. Perhaps Tom Stoppard can help. This is an exchange from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
ROS: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?That was my favorite part of the play when I first saw it as a teen. Some things don't change.
GUIL: No, no, no ... Death is ... not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
ROS: I've frequently not been on boats.
GUIL: No, no, no ... what you've been is not on boats.
So it makes no sense to feel sorry for the deceased. What we mourn is the hole they leave in our lives.
Most people don't see death like that; they believe in an afterlife. Most of My Gentle Readers do. How do you envision the afterlife? Most think that their friends go to heaven. Why should you feel bad that someone you love is going to paradise? If you believe in reincarnation I'm sure you think your friends will come back as something better or will reach Nirvana; still nothing to feel bad about. The only culture that I know had a dim view of the afterlife is the ancient Greeks where the dead, even the best people, lived a shadow existence devoid of happiness. Read the story of Odysseus in Hades in the Odyssey. The Greeks couldn't keep believing such a dark view of the afterlife and created the Elysian Fields, a paradise for the dead. Off topic but requiring mention, is that the first game of baseball under the rules that Alexander Cartwright codified was played at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken NJ. Baseball is paradise.
So believers in an afterlife have even less reason to mourn the dead. No, we mourn for ourselves. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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Horvendile April 04, 2013
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