Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Consider:
"If you get handed lemons... make lemonade!" But lemons are not the only ingredient in lemonade; also required is water and sugar. If all you are handed is lemons, then all you can make is lemon juice, sour to drink. Sugar is what makes lemonade sweet. The adage assumes that you are handed not only lemons but also sugar, or that you had a sufficient store of sugar prior. Without sugar, if you are handed lemons, you simply cannot make lemonade.
And of course, it commonly occurs that, both figuratively and literally, there is no sugar.
Sometimes there is not even water.
"If you get handed lemons... make lemonade!" But lemons are not the only ingredient in lemonade; also required is water and sugar. If all you are handed is lemons, then all you can make is lemon juice, sour to drink. Sugar is what makes lemonade sweet. The adage assumes that you are handed not only lemons but also sugar, or that you had a sufficient store of sugar prior. Without sugar, if you are handed lemons, you simply cannot make lemonade.
And of course, it commonly occurs that, both figuratively and literally, there is no sugar.
Sometimes there is not even water.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
"This is a matter of national security. This is important."
"It's only important if you think any of that shit matters."
"A lot of people might die."
"No, all people will die. Whether they live another year or ten or two hundred is not important, except to themselves, and that is a matter of vanity."
"It's only important if you think any of that shit matters."
"A lot of people might die."
"No, all people will die. Whether they live another year or ten or two hundred is not important, except to themselves, and that is a matter of vanity."
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
after being up all night, I wake at 4:50 in the afternoon and write down these thoughts:
You are a guest at a large dinner with many guests, and you know that the food is poisoned. What do you do? Do you try to dissuade others from eating any way you can? Do you try to dissuade others from eating with the truth, and endure the suspicion that you poisoned the food? Do you excuse yourself from the dinner without explanation? Do you excuse yourself with explanation? Do you pretend to eat? Do you converse and laugh and feast and share fate with the rest of the diners?
Now here's the problem: Life is that dinner, everyone you know is at the dinner, and the food is poisoned.
You are a guest at a large dinner with many guests, and you know that the food is poisoned. What do you do? Do you try to dissuade others from eating any way you can? Do you try to dissuade others from eating with the truth, and endure the suspicion that you poisoned the food? Do you excuse yourself from the dinner without explanation? Do you excuse yourself with explanation? Do you pretend to eat? Do you converse and laugh and feast and share fate with the rest of the diners?
Now here's the problem: Life is that dinner, everyone you know is at the dinner, and the food is poisoned.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
She looked up from the picture book and at me with her big eyes -- she was afraid.
I picked her up and squeezed her. "No no no, Sweetie, those monsters aren't real. Your mother is real, and I am real, and the ger about us is real. But those monsters are the thoughts of other people, only thoughts, like dreams. You don't see monsters like you see your mother and me and the ger and the world. And when our part of the world turns away from the light each day for the night, the darkness that encompasses us is empty. There are no monsters in it. The darkness is empty."
I didn't tell her that the emptiness is fearful.
I picked her up and squeezed her. "No no no, Sweetie, those monsters aren't real. Your mother is real, and I am real, and the ger about us is real. But those monsters are the thoughts of other people, only thoughts, like dreams. You don't see monsters like you see your mother and me and the ger and the world. And when our part of the world turns away from the light each day for the night, the darkness that encompasses us is empty. There are no monsters in it. The darkness is empty."
I didn't tell her that the emptiness is fearful.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Ambition in a corporeally contained consciousness is pointless to the point of obscenity. For when the blast opens your chest, or the chemicals corrode your liver, or the automobile smashes your spine, or the disease devours your brain, or the cricket bat flattens the back of your head, or the decay triumphs as it must, you discover that all mortal ambition definitively reduces to a bloody smear, and that all that stress you suffered in pursuit of something was for nothing, and you could have instead spent your finite days relaxing and reading philosophy.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
We had cats on the farm when I was young. But they stayed in the barn. They were all named “cat.” They fed themselves. They would disappear for six months at a time, and then show up again, or not show up again. They were pettable, but generally uninterested. They hung around because the barn was warm and the rodent presence that is inalienably associated with any human presence provided them with a food source. The consumable detritus that we generated was a bonus. When they would have kittens in the hayloft, we would cuddle and pet them and try to play with them. It was only possible when they were yet tiny; they constantly tried to get away, and did as soon as they could. Dad would usually kill half the litter by knocking them in the head. In a litter of six to eight kittens, if you killed half, then one or two might live to adulthood. Sometimes Dad didn't thin the litter, and they would all die.
Life is cheap; non-human life particularly so.
Life is cheap; non-human life particularly so.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Humans dominate their entire environment; the only animals that exist within that environment are those that provide some use to the humans or those that the humans allow to remain existing. There's nothing evil in this, just as there is nothing evil or good in anything (evil and good being human conceptual constructs applied to an indifferent material universe).
However, to adjudge actions and practices in the context of what we value: the phenomenon of taking and keeping animal “pets” in the wealthy countries seems the most psychologically abhorrent of all forms of human exploitation of animals. Humans in wealthy countries physically imprison animals; forcibly and unalterably remove the animals' reproductive, defensive, and food-acquiring capacities; and compel the once independent animals to become entirely dependent upon their slave-master captors, and all so that the animals can provide some emotional gratification to these awful humans. If you're laughing then you're missing the point; there is no exaggeration here. To see people without food, and then to see fat, comfortable people giving food to animals that they keep around for emotional exploitation (because it is easier to extract emotional stimulus from a trapped and dependent animal than it is to develop and maintain emotional bonds with other free-thinking and free-acting humans), one cannot help but feel barren over the blatant and obscene lie of “human values.”
However, to adjudge actions and practices in the context of what we value: the phenomenon of taking and keeping animal “pets” in the wealthy countries seems the most psychologically abhorrent of all forms of human exploitation of animals. Humans in wealthy countries physically imprison animals; forcibly and unalterably remove the animals' reproductive, defensive, and food-acquiring capacities; and compel the once independent animals to become entirely dependent upon their slave-master captors, and all so that the animals can provide some emotional gratification to these awful humans. If you're laughing then you're missing the point; there is no exaggeration here. To see people without food, and then to see fat, comfortable people giving food to animals that they keep around for emotional exploitation (because it is easier to extract emotional stimulus from a trapped and dependent animal than it is to develop and maintain emotional bonds with other free-thinking and free-acting humans), one cannot help but feel barren over the blatant and obscene lie of “human values.”