As long as I'm pissing away my summer- well, no such summer is complete without at least one random pointless LJ post tossed into the internet to rot. Anyone out there?
The season finale of Doctor Who sucked. I mean, really sucked. That ruined my whole week, I think. Well, except for the Germanish-speaking Daleks. That gave me something akin to the giggles.
On the other hand, I found I make an excellent cherry pie. That'll continue to generate awesomeness until cherry season is over.
I've had one job interview. I didn't hear back. I've another next week. Maybe as I do more of them, I'll sound less like a blithering moron you shouldn't let near school children.
No great philosophical quandries here. Just a quiet sort of waiting for the "I'm not wasting my life" feeling to kick in. Not that I anticipate it ever will. More likely my expectations will reallign themselves to my life instead. Same thing, I guess.
Welp, back to wallowing in the glory of existence.
Things like thing affect me profoundly, and you might laugh, and maybe it's stupid, but they do.
When you reveal the tenuous grip we have on "reality." On the abstract nature of that "reality." When you shred the illusion that our perception is really in any way an absolute observation of whatever it is in which we exist. That messes with my psyche.
And it usually leaves me wanting deeply to write. Usually fiction, or sometimes confused poetry, of a fantastical nature. In a childish attempt to reach out to the other sentient things I truly believe exist- that is, other people- and try to reach them on some level that goes beyond the fallible senses on which we so rely- erroneously?
Then my inability or eventual self-defeating refusal to do so successfully always leaves me emptier inside, I think.
Eventually the illusion of truth will hollow me out.
Because Josh poked this badger with a spoon- a little contact.
I offer up the recipes "program" I nurse as Joe and I practice our mad kitchen skillz.
Eat up! Update: Ok, link doesn't work. So y'll have to wait till I find someplace to host my file that you can download it from. Or email me for it. It's tiny tiny tiny.
After being subjected to some total sexist bullshit in my "childhood development" class, and after not eating all day except a cheap Valentine's candy from the drug store, THIS has made my day.
Boy I'd love to walk naked down the street, but boy I'd hate to get arrested. (Good way to never get hired as a teacher, too, btw, getting arrested...)
Craig Ferguson, whoever he is, is an actual, feeling, thinking human being. It's always nice to find one. ( http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2007/02/not-even-scots-accent-makes-alcoholism.html ) "Ferguson has taken a lot of crap for his show, for unknown reasons, since he was, after all, replacing the Jackass Known As Craig Kilborn. But this is a truly extraordinary monologue. Note how the audience continues to laugh like Pavlov's dogs at the mere mention of Britney Spears' name, until they realize what Ferguson is doing -- and then he proceeds to leaven the seriousness by poking fun at not Spears', but his own alcoholism."
What differentiates a winter wonderland from a frozen hellscape?
I would argue that a major component is wind. But I will argue that it is location.
A walk through my familiar country side laden with the same snow and ice, little noise outside the birds and the ice crackling and the snow crunching. Maybe the creek heading past.
A walk around my current location, a city, provides me with a filthy mix of slush, mud, gas, and gods-know-what flying through the air (and into me) at frequent intervals. The usual sounds are roaring bus and semi engines, little zoom-zoom cars, and ambulance and police car alarms, along with the nauxious fumes that accompany. Very little undisturbed snow, but plenty of piles of muck heaped onto the sidewalks, which seem eager to trip me into the busy street.
I'm a little biased. Sorry. And cranky. And covered in slushy filth.
However, has anyone noticed the trees are beautiful? (Not that trees are usually ugly, useless collections of carbon.) I had a Lost City of Ajit moment walking under the white ice trees.
"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man" -- not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!
Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. The clouds are lifting. The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality.
Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow -- into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up."
