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.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
October 03, 2009 - 11:05 p.m.
I'm done procrastinating. It's time for me to write. The problem is that I promised myself today was going to be a substantial entry. I haven't been too happy with the last few. Now I have to make the effort.
Today was the first day of the WFUV pledge drive. I have to be there at 8, that means getting up even earlier than I do for school. I set my alarm for 6:50, I was actually awake at 6:10. I have no idea how I do that. I was out of the house right on time, 7:05 and I got to Nora's house right on time 7:20. There is of course no traffic that early on a Saturday so we got to the station right on time. We were the first ones there. I set up the phones and the drive was on.
I was very proud of myself. The first show on in the morning is Mile Failte, the Irish language program and Nora and I like to thank the people making pledges in Irish. Every year we have Seamus Blake, the host teach us how to say it. Nora was proud because she remembered to bring her cheat sheet from last year. I was proud because I actually remembered how to say it. This is it phonetically. I don't know the real spelling, "Guh rev mah a guth." Seamus said I pronounced it perfectly. Languages are my Achilles heel so I take special pride when I get it right.
We are often the only two volunteers for Seamus's show, the others don't show up till 9:00 for the music show A Thousand Welcomes. This time everyone came for at least part of Mile Failte. The crew was heavy with veterans, I have known each of Nora, Brian, Colleen, and Peter for over ten years. It's been something like 16 for Nora. These aren't acquaintances, these are friends. We were joined by a rookie, Judy. This was her first time volunteering. We're a tough crowd to walk in on. We have so many shared references. It's like the joke about the prisoners who memorized a joke book and would just say the page number and everyone would laugh. When the new guy comes in he says, "page 27" and nobody laughs. When he asks why he's told, "It's the way you told it."
After Mile Failte comes A Thousand Welcomes. Raise your hand if you see why that's appropriate. It's always the same hands. Mile Failte is Irish for A Thousand Welcomes. The host is Kathleen Biggins. If you want to learn about Irish music, the real thing, not Danny Boy, listen to her show. If you don't live in the area listen online.
The show ends at one and when it was over we left. When I went to the closet to get my jacket I noticed something odd as I put it on. It was too warm. It was not the jacket I brought with me. The thing is it was mine. This was the jacket that I had lost and just bought a replacement for. I must have left it there during the spring drive and nobody ever moved it. That was the last time I needed the jacket so I didn't discover it was missing till recently when it cooled off again. Now I have an extra jacket. I'll find a use for it. I was also given a WFUV windbreaker. That was perfect. The windbreaker I've been wearing has seen better days. I knew I needed a new one. As a matter of fact when I got home I discovered that it had developed a full tear and I just threw it out. So I left the house with one jacket and came back with three and immediately threw out the one I started with.
I remembered that I wanted to stop at Trader Joe's after dropping Nora off. She lives much closer to it than I do. After I left I realized that I forgot to buy bread that I needed so I went on to the Stop and Shop nearby. I actually like their bread better. As long as I was there I went to see what was on sale and bought Porterhouse Steaks that were on a great sale, and chicken breasts. I know I just bought chicken but these are the perfect portion breasts from Purdue which are so much more convenient. I like having them around. I bought a few other things too. I used self checkout and was really annoyed when the people in front of me ended up having about 40 items even though we were in the 12 items or less line. That distracted me enough to create a idiot story. I rushed through my checkout because I felt bad for the people behind me. The store had someone pack my stuff. I grabbed my bags, put them in my cart, and went to my car. When I got home and went to put the stuff away guess what I discovered. Yes I had somehow forgotten my steaks and chicken; the things I had spent most of my money on. I had to go back to the store and tell them what happened. They told me just pick up some new packages and I did.
After that I was supposed to write this entry but somehow didn't do so. Now it's late and this entry is longer than I thought it would be. That means I'm going to wait yet another day to write the one I've been planning. So this is not the revealing one I've been working on. It is another simple narrative of the day. Somehow I like it better than the last few. There was an idiot story so it can't be a complete waste. Are any of you particular fans of the idiot stories? That's something I can see; someone saying, "I better read Wise Madness I want to see how stupid Gordon can be."
I'm a Renaissance Man - October 10, 2009
Shotgun! - October 07, 2009
Misteaks Mistakes - October 06, 2009
My Enthusiasm is Never Curbed - October 05, 2009
Take the WFUV Tour - October 04, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile October 03, 2009
