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 ...
September 23, 2014 - 12:35 p.m.
The theme of this entry is best boyfriend ever even though I don�t have a girlfriend. It takes talent to pull that off.
Yesterday started early as I had to take Heather for her follow-up appointment in Queens. I set my alarm for 7:30 but once again woke up at 6:30. That�s why I could update yesterday morning.
They did something odd with the busses. I always wait for the bus at the same spot near the corner. Yesterday the busses stopped halfway down the block. I thought it was just stopped because of traffic but then it didn�t stop to pick me up. I saw the next bus opened his doors there and I ran down to catch it. I asked if they had moved the stop and the driver said, "the entire block is the stop." I guess they now expect you to run to catch the bus when you don't guess right.
After the appointment we ate breakfast at the T-Bone Diner in Forest Hills. I haven't been there in ages. I always think of Stephen J. Gould when I'm there because he wrote about it in one of his "This View of Life" columns. It's older than I am. Yes it preceded dirt.
I took Heather home then went back to my apartment for what I hoped would be a nap. It wasn't. I just did things on the computer then headed out to therapy. I'm officially not depressed. I get situational depression but I'm not chronically depressed. She didn't use the technical term, I'm a cheerful hobbit.
I then bought bagels, they are half=priced on Monday and then went for my therapy food. Yesterday it was Max Brenner. I got this.
A bit strange that they make you put the toppings on yourself. It's wasteful, it sticks to the little dish and it makes a mess. But it tasted great. Are you glad that I provide your food porn needs?
My plan was to then go home and make dinner but I got a Facebook message from Heather that her new phone wasn�t working. Her old phone was water damaged and they sent her a new one. But it said it wasn't registered. I told her I'd come over and try to fix it. I am her geek-in-law.
The phone wanted to be registered. Heather didn't have the pin her parents do back in Maryland. That didn't seem right to me. I took the back off. I figured I'd take the battery out and do a hard reboot. But while I was doing that Heather said that she put the new SIM card in and everything. Do you now know what was wrong? She didn't need the new SIM card she needed the old one. That's the purpose of SIM cards. You can transfer the information from phone to phone. Once I swapped out the cards the phone worked. One of Heather's roommates is moving out and she expected someone that evening to come and look at the place. I got the phone fixed in time for that. I waited around to meet her. I have totally blanked on her name. She was born here but moved to New Zealand as a kid and just moved back here a few months ago. I was my charming self so she took the room. It was total cause and effect. The best part was when she asked me, "How do you fit in?" I told her I was the handyman. I fix things when they break. I'm totally Tom Poston on Newhart. I need overalls and cap.
Then I headed home but it was too late to buy something for dinner. I had talked about peanut butter and bacon sandwiches with the new roommate so that's what I made myself. When I was done I looked in the fridge and saw the sausages I had bought for dinner. I'm an idiot. You probably knew that.
I have absolutely nothing planned today. That's a rarity. Maybe it will be a not leave the house day. Now that I'm not depressed I can do that. Or maybe I'll do something I never have time for. I will play it by ear.
I've been thinking a lot about politics and philosophy. I think I'll save most of it for tomorrow when I won't have done anything to write home about. But I'll go with one thing and I forgot the news story that inspired it. I will often rail about religion and will broaden my ire to include ideology, Bertrand Russell said they were the same thing and I agree. But it hit me now that it's more general than that. The problem is when people get their morality from an outside source that they accept as gospel. Something isn't right or wrong because Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Marx, or Rand say so. But that's not the only sources of received morality. There is tradition. In the south slavery was their "peculiar institution." It was right because it was the tradition. Much of what people think of as Islamic problems, like honor killings are actually tribal traditions given a religious veneer. Tradition and religion reinforce each other to get people to think that something so wrong is right.
My response to my thinking these sorts of things is always the same. I examine if I do the same thing. I can't think of any but that might just mean that it's so ingrained that I can't see it. And that's the point of my writing about things like this. To get you to think about these things and find where you might act immoral out of the desire to be moral. The touchstones are always the same, the Golden Rule and John Adams's "Be just and good." I'm going to give the full Jefferson response as it is on topic.
The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four words: 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our enquiries must end; as the riddles of all the priesthood end in four more: 'Ubi panis ibi Deus.' What all agree in is probably right; what no two agree in most probably wrongOr as Dylan said, "Don't follow leaders/watch the parking meters."
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 September 23, 2014
| site search by freefind | advanced |
Follow on Feedly
