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 ...
January 04, 2014 - 1:33 p.m.
Ugh, it's 12:22 and I haven't started writing yet and today was the day I was going to get out and do things. Not important things but fun thing, take a walk in the snow at Prospect Park. I have to get there before dark. I also have to go to the bank and maybe do some shopping.
Most of yesterday was a waste. The one thing I did worthwhile was write Wise Madness. I'm actually proud of Suffer the Little Children. It isn't exactly what I wanted to write, it was so long that parts got lost. The material deserves more than the three or four hours I put into it but I said things that need to be said and things you need to hear. You can skip this entry if you like but read that.
People don't like when I get serious. People like when I'm lighthearted and funny. I like when I'm lighthearted and funny, in general I am lighthearted and funny but sometimes a heavier hand is needed.
When I write something like that I fear that the response is going to be hearing the crickets. I was delighted to get two thoughtful responses from two of the people dearest to me. I have good judgment about people.
I also just appreciate the interaction. I had another day in isolation. The only conversation I had was with my landlady. I have been having too many days like that and I've been wasting the time I've had free. I should have spent the entire day writing if I wasn't going to get out and play in the snow.
I did get out of the house in the evening. I went to buy wool socks because of the cold. All my thermal socks and my boots are in storage. I have to get them out. I am thinking of going tomorrow. I couldn't get real thermal socks, I got hiking socks, but they are wool. That makes a big difference. The feet are the hardest part of the body to keep warm.
Oh and I cooked dinner again. I made soup, this time with plantain. I tried something different making it with sweet not green plantain. It turns it into a different dish. I used more red pepper than usual along with the jalopeno pepper jack cheese and jalopeno chicken sausage. I like the heat. It contrasted nicely with the sweet plantain.
I'm trying to see if maybe I can work some vegetables into the soup. I can't eat anything leafy or with a hard skin because of my Crohn's disease. And I just don't like vegetables. I won't be able to eat it if I can really taste them. Any suggestions of something nutritious I can add whose flavor will be overwhelmed by the stuff I like? I might try making it with a vegetable soup stock instead of chicken or beef. But I'm afraid I'll hate it and will have wasted all that food and time.
And now back to being serious. A lot of people have been linking to articles that look like this, ALL RELIGIONS ARE TRUE, ADAM AND EVE A FABLE, HELL IS A MERE METAPHOR � says Pope Francis. My friends are a liberal lot and think this is a good thing. The most obvious problem is that the Pope never said it. This was all based on a satiric piece as was pointed out by Snopes. Yes the Pope has let up on the ideological hard line of his predecessors and I applaud that. It can do real good. But part of me is wary. Not of him, but of the entire idea that a person can have moral authority. Most of the people I know have even better moral outlooks but people don't go around saying how much they love that person simply for condemning homosexuality less loudly than others. And even if he said it was perfectly fine and not a sin, hey I think that too, so do most of My Gentle Readers. He gets is moral authority from exactly the same source as Benedict, a bunch of cardinals gave it to him. I am against anything that gives a process like that legitimacy. Morality is tough, it's hard to come up with hard and fast rules. Philosphers have been working at this forever and gotten nowhere. But the one thing is clear is that nothing is moral or immoral because someone says it is. It ends up as being an amorphous consensus which each person interprets differently. Just because everyone thinks something doesn't make it right. But at least it's better than one person saying so and people following blindly. When it comes to morality don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters. And always be ready to question society's and especially your own.
OK, now I have to make breakfast, looks like bacon and eggs as I neglected to get challah to make French toast. Then I'm off to play in the snow and then head up to Rockwood to see Kristin Andreassen at Rockwood Music Hall. There's going to be just music but also shadow puppets! You really want to go.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
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 January 04, 2014
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