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 09, 2012 - 11:18 a.m.
I'm sad to say that I have to start this edition with a health report. Right after I finished writing yesterday I had a Crohn's disease attack. I started to feel bloated. Till then I was hungry and wanted breakfast. It soon turned a bit painful and I could feel the lump in my intestine behind the blockage. I was going to tell you today that I'm almost done with my course of prednisone. I was supposed to stop this week. I'm down to 5 mg a day. Do I have to start again? Do I have to stay on a maintenance dosage? I did that for years but I don't like it.
I couldn't eat breakfast and ended up sleeping most of the day. I never actually got to my bed. I just stayed in my recliner. That worked pretty well. When I was awake I read the Sunday Times and my book.
It ended up not being too bad as it passed last night and at 10 PM I finally ate breakfast. First I tried a poached egg. When that went down without causing pain I had another one and a sausage. I was starving.
I'm not 100% now but I'm hungry and will eat today and have the filet mignon for dinner. I might make an expedition to Trader Joe's today.
Oh before I go any further or is that farther? I have to correct an injustice. When I wrote about the The Tribute to Joni Mitchell's Blue I left out something very important. Jess brought me cookies. Not just any cookies but homemade bacon-chocolate chip cookies. Yes bacon! That of course deserved mention. To make up for my lapse I wanted to write Pindaric ode to them. If they don't deserve an ode what does? The only problem is that I don't really know the elements of the Pindaric Ode. I also don't write much poetry any more. My mind is just not in the right place for it. So instead I'm writing prose telling you that I should be writing a poem. Does that count?
Because I was sick I still have cookies left. Here's the odd thing. I eat them most at breakfast. Not because of the bacon but because of the cookie. I like my chocolate chip cookies dunked in coffee and I usually only make that for breakfast. I have iced coffee at dinner and that's not the same thing.
Oreos I dunk in milk. Maybe I should buy some oreos or Joe Os. I haven't had them in ages. There is considerable debate on the right way to eat oreos. It was even the basis of one of their ad campaigns. There shouldn't really be debate. The proper way is to dunk it in milk long enough for part of it to get soaked, take a bite, then and here's the key, drop the rest of the cookie into the milk. You can even skip the first step and just dump the whole cookie in. Then you drink the milk but take your time. At the end you eat the oreo/milk mush with a spoon.
How does anyone read Wise Madness? One day I write about atheism and religion and the next day an Ode to bacon-chocolate chip cookies. Not even an ode, just saying that I should write an ode.
And that reminds me of what I forgot to put in my atheism and religion edition yesterday. I came up with another metaphor. Living in a world where most people are believers is like living in a world where most people believe that two plus two equals yellow. If that confuses you then you know exactly how I feel. If you understand then you know exactly how I feel. If you skipped this paragraph you don't only not know how I feel but you don't care how I feel because you broke my heart. Good thing nobody actually read this or you'd think I was whining.
I actually could write more on religion today. I've been thinking quite a bit about what I call Bayesian religion and atheism but I'll wait on that. It's fun though.
I've also been thinking a lot about politics and the distribution of wealth and occupy Wall Street but I think that's too heavy for today. I need something light. Let me rummage through the ideas bin. Wow lots of politics in it. There's some math but that relates to politics too. I see one, it's about my friends. People always like reading about themselves. That will do.
I have all kinds of friends but one thing that's true about all of them is that I can have intellectual conversations with them. That seems to be the one necessary though not sufficient condition of my friendship. They can be intellectual about different spheres of knowledge. There are of course plenty that I can assume know math or science references and I can discuss math and science ideas with. I can have passionate discussions of language usage with most of them. My friends care about these things. There will be long threads on people's Facebook profiles on the proper and more often improper uses of languages. My friends not only know what an Oxford comma is but they care if people use it.
My friends know history and geography and mythology. I can make references to obscure music and know there's a reasonable chance they know it too. They all, well almost all, know that Michael Nesmith's mother invented whiteout. If I'm talking baseball I can bring up the records of players who retired before we were born and use sabermetric arguments and not get blank stares.
Most importantly I know I can learn things from friends. They can expand my world. They can teach me not only about the things I mentioned but the things that I don't know that I want to know.
I enjoy other kinds of conversations but I need those intellectual ones too. Of course what's best is the people that realize that intellectual and silly are not opposites but go together. That's the beauty of Monty Python and Woody Allen. When you can talk about Kierkegaard one minute and silly walks or lobsters loose in the kitchen the next you really get it. I don't know what it is but I know when it's got.
There are some people whose friends are not intellectual enough for them even if they don't know it. I can see they appreciate it and sometimes they'll even say how happy they are to have someone they can talk about these things with. I try and encourage their inner nerd. You don't have to be an outward nerd to want to have discussions with intellectual content. There is a societal bias against intellectualism. You often see it in politics. Nowadays it's common in the Sarah Palin wing of the Republican party but even Eisenhower derided Adlai Stevenson as an "egghead." On TV anyone who talks about anything intellectual is portrayed as socially inept. That leads people to hide that they are thinking about things. That's why I encourage it.
OK now I'm going to eat breakfast and enjoy the simple fact that I can eat it.
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
creative commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile January 09, 2012
| site search by freefind | advanced |
Follow on Feedly
