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 ...
December 29, 2015 - 12:54 p.m.
I don’t know where the time went. I got up before nine and now it’s 11:22. I didn’t do much. This is the work of the chronoklepts. I haven’t invoked them in while. When is everyone else going to adopt the term? It’s from chrono=time and klept=thief; they steal from all of us. How come Buffy never fought them? Joss should have hired me from the get go.
I failed at yesterday, I never left the house. That isn’t even the work of the chronoklepts. At some point I just said, “no I’ll stay home.” Today I’m going out even if it kills me. I’ll go to Trader Joe’s. I really should go to Stop & Shop but I haven’t been to Joes in a while.
I didn’t talk to anyone yesterday either or the day before. When’s the last time I talked to somebody? OK not so bad, it was Saturday when I saw Aaron. I am going to see Michael Daves tonight, maybe I’ll run into someone I know at the show. Of course it might be too crowded for me to find anyone that I do know. That’s the reason I don’t see him more often; he plays at Rockwood Music Hall every Tuesday.
One problem with my plans is that I have to be home at 3 PM to watch Kat Quinn on Kiss 108. That’s not the kind of station you’d expect someone I love to be on but she won a contest. It’s being live streamed at .
So far this is all forward looking. What about yesterday? I did manage to edit a lot of pictures and post them. I’ve worked my way back to early November. I have some pictures well over a year old I never got to.
My readership has been slowly building. Here’s the latest report and December isn’t over yet.
This is a trend so I think it’s real. I think that big drop after January is an artifact of the way FB makes my posts visible. There was early a similar anomalous jump in readership. I have been working at making my links to Wise Madness more visible. Did you know it has its own Facebook page? It does, . Go like it and you’ll be more likely to catch the updates. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed. That’s how I keep up with all the blogs I read.
I have a free one week trial subscription to Starz via Amazon Prime. I got it so I could watch Diehard. I’m trying to take advantage of it and watch more movies on it. I have it till Friday when I’ll have to remember to cancel it. I have it on my Google Calendar. So yesterday I went to watch Spiderman 3. Before I did I wasn’t sure if I saw Spiderman 2 so I searched for it. I found The Amazing Spiderman 2 I didn’t realize they started over again with a new actor as Spidey. It was unwatchable. The special effects looked like a cartoon and the writing was horrific. So I went to watching Spiderman 3 and gave up on that. The special effects were also cartoony and the writing not good. That series declined fast. It was always the weakest of the Marvel movie franchises. I take that back, the Hulk is.
I did watch the season finale of The Librarians. That did not disappoint. It was a Flynn episode and even though I’m in love with Lindy Booth who plays Cassandra, Flynn is still my favorite. He was the original Librarian and Noah Wyle has great comic timing. The resolution ot the season’s story arc was satisfying and they managed to fool me without feeling they cheated.
Now for something I’ve been saving for a while. There’s a line from the Sabatini novel Master of Arms that I find myself thinking of often; “To understand all is to forgive all.” Oddly in the book I thought the character was wrong to forgive but as forgiveness is a virtue I try to do it and I try to understand when people do things that seem so wrong. I often do this on a personal level but today I’m going to approach it on a demographic, Trump supporters.
The typical Trump supporter is Archie Bunker, an uneducated middle-aged white bigot. I try to find understanding and I think I have and with it perhaps even a little forgiveness. Why? Uneducated middle-aged whites were part of a big news story this year, Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans, Study Finds. It’s not just that they are dying, it’s what they are dying from; “… rising annual death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.” This is a group that’s clearly being stressed. They are depressed they are scared and as someone one said:
They know that their lot in life is not what they expected it to be and they lack the training and perhaps even more so the time to determine the complex causes for their lot. So when someone comes in and says, “It’s not your fault, you are great, it’s all the fault of THEM” it gives a focus to their fears, anger, and hate. This is what demagogues have always done. They say that Trump is a candidate like no other but it’s not true, he’s following in a long line of men who sort power through exploiting the fears of others. It’s more satisfying to fear and hate those that fear and hate but that is the path to the Dark Side. It also is not an effective way of dealing with them. The more you ridicule and attack them they more they feel justified that they are under attack by THEM and need to fight back by any means necessary; it becomes a matter of survival in their minds.
It seems like I’ve been writing a lot or perhaps just thinking a lot of the harm done by righteous indignation. It’s because I love when I’m the one righteously indignant. As I said it’s a good feeling from a bad thing. It’s addictive. It has its place but be careful with it. It’s like drinking, be responsible about it.
Before I quoted Yoda now I’ll go to another even wiser man, Bertrand Russell. I’ve quoted this many times before “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.”
Now to eat. It’s a sausageeggandcheese on a bagel day. Damn I didn’t buy bagels yesterday. I have some in the house but won’t be able to eat as many as I usually do unless I’m willing to go out and buy some full priced. But that’s for the future, today I will eat and enjoy. That will make me good. Listen to this and it will make you joy and make you a better person.
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 December 29, 2015
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