The title says it all. I have grown older, and I have realized the degree of my foolishness in much of life. Now, this old fool muses about the past and present, and how to have an impact in the world around him. *NOTE: Review the creative commons license on the site before sharing/linking.
Well, I've got a trip coming this weekend. And the feet are acting up again. It's not something to be done lightly, but I decided to take this poison preventively, and hope that I can stave off a few days of serious trouble.
But, today the news reminds me that whenever I feel I've had a bad day, I need to be ashamed that I even began to consider it to be so. God bless and comfort the families at Ft. Hood....
Good night.
--
The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
Some pearls of wisdom from the Ayn Rand character, John Galt, in his rousing speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged...
Excerpts:
* * * * *
"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. his body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch - or build a cyclotron - without a knowledge of his aim and the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.
But to think is an act of choice...............reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct."
* * * * *
"If there are degrees of evil, it is hard to say who is the more contemptible: the brute who assumes the right to force the mind of others, or the moral degenerate who grants to others the right to force his mind. That is the moral absolute one does not leave open to debate.
I do not grant the terms of reason to men who propose to deprive me of reason.
I do not enter discussions with neighbors who think they can forbid me to think.
I do not place my moral sanction upon a murderer's wish to kill me. When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him - by force. "
* * * * *
"The restriction they [the immoral, the irrational, the socialists, the new philosophers and mystics] seek to escape is the law of identity. The freedom they seek is freedom from the fact that A will remain an A, no matter what their tears or tantrums - that a river will not bring them milk, no matter what their hunger - that water will not run uphill, no matter what comforts they could gain if it did, and if they want to lift it to the roof of a skyscraper, they must do it by a process of thought and labor, in which the nature of an inch of pipe line counts, but their feelings *do not* - that their feelings are *impotent* to alter the course of a single speck of dust in space, or the nature of any actions they have committed.
Those who tell you that man is unable to perceive a reality undistorted by his senses, mean that they are unwilling to perceive a reality undistorted by their *feelings*. 'Things ar they are' are things as perceived by your mind; divorce them from reason, and they become 'things as perceived by your wishes.' "
"They proclaim that every man born is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is entitled to receive his 'minimum sustenance' - his food, his clothes, his shelter - with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright.
To receive it - from whom? Blank-out.
Every man, they announce, owns an equal share of the technological benefits created in the world.
Created - by whom? Blank-out.
Frantic cowards who posture as defenders of industrialists now define the purpose of economics as 'an adjustment between the unlimited desires of men and the goods supplied in limited quantity.'
Supplied - by whom? Blank-out.
Intellectual hoodlums who pose as professors, shrug away the thinkers of the past by declaring that their social theories were based on the impractical assumption that man was a rational being - but since men are not rational, they declare, there ought to be established a system that will make it possible for them to exist while being irrational, which means: while defying reality.
Who will make it possible? Blank-out.
Any stray mediocrity rushes into print with plans to control the production of mankind - and whoever agrees or disagrees with his statistics, no one questions his right to enforce his plans by means of a gun.
Enforce - on whom? Blank-out.
Random females [now celebritards] with causeless incomes flitter on trips around the globe and return to deliver the message that the backwards people of the world demand a higher standard of living.
Demand - of whom? Blank-out."
* * * * *
"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute, and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right, and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting a responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube."
* * * * *
"As a basic step of self-esteem, learn to treat as the mark of a cannibal any man's demand for your help. To demand it is to claim that your life is his property - and loathsome as such a claim might be, there's something still more loathsome: your agreement. Do you ask if it's ever proper to help another man? No-if he claims it as his right or moral duty that you owe him. Yes - if such is your own desire based on your ownselfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle.
Suffering as such is not a value; only man's fight against suffering, is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim - is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values."
* * * * *
"When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made the factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing.
...
Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but it's only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he'll rise.
Physical labor as such can extend no further than the range of the moment. The man who does no more than physical labor, consumes the material value-equivalent of his own contribution to the process of production, and leaves no further value, neither for himself nor others.
But the man who produces an idea in any field of rational endeavor - the man who discovers new knolwedge - is the permanent benefactor of humanity. Material products can't be shared, they belong to some ultimate consumer; it is only the value of an idea that can be shared with unlimited numbers of men, making all sharers richer at no one's sacrifice or loss, raising the productive capacity of whatever labor they perform.
It is the value of his own time that the strong of the intellect transfers to the weak, letting them work on the jobs he discovered, while devoting his time to further discoveries. This is mutual trade to mutual advantage; the interests of the mind are one, no matter what the degree of intelligence, among men who desire to work and don't seek or expect the unearned.
In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention recieves but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns.
But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, recieves an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability.
The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time.
The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains.
Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the wak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.
...
You decided to call it unfair that we, who had dragged you out of your hovels and provided you with modern apartments, with radios, movies and cars, should own our own palaces and yachts - you decided that YOU had a right to your wages, but that WE had no right to our profits. that YOU did not want us to deal with your mind, but to deal, instead, with your gun. Our answer to that was: 'May you be damned!' Our answer cdame true. You are."
* * * * *
I only wish the BSG phrase could now resound: "So say we all."
Good night, and sleep well with dreams of rational thinkers surviving somewhere underground as the looters and new mystics of the "social" take over.
--
The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
Today marks 17 days since the current bout of immobility kicked in. Not all days have I been thoroughly immobile, some of them I was able to get around with one or two canes. Others, I didn't get up off the couch - yes, the couch, because the bed was too uncomfortable.
It's times like these that I go back and read my own "pep talks" to myself, because it's not easy to remain frustration-free. For the first time in at least a couple of years, I had found myself being able to engage in some healthy activities that carried the hope of combining with my current medication regimen to possibly show some real improvements. After one week of feeling great - this new round kicks in. And sure, I'll get over it, and I'll get back on my feet...but the timing just sucked. I guess it's never a good time to have mind-numbing pain keep you up for all but one or two hours a night, but this seemed to be worse timing than normal.
One of the downers is that my long and checkered history with medications means that I have very, very limited options for dealing with these flare-ups. Ok, pharmaceutically, I really have only ONE option. And it's a toxic poison. yeah, they call it a medicine, but it's a medicine like chemo is a medicine - it just gets rid of the bad stuff faster than it would actually kill you. Here's a paraphrase what wikipedia has to say about this wonderful pharmaceutical option:
The drug's toxicity has been compared to arsenic poisoning: symptoms start 2 to 5 hours after the toxic dose has been ingested and include burning in the mouth and throat, fever,vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and kidney failure. These symptoms may set in as many as 24 hours after the exposure. Onset of multiple-system organ failure may occur within 24 to 72 hours. This includes hypovolemic shock due to extreme vascular damage and fluid loss through the GI tract, which may result in death. Additionally, sufferers may experience kidney damage resulting in low urine output and bloody urine; low white blood cell counts (persisting for several days); anemia; muscular weakness; and respiratory failure. Recovery may begin within 6 to 8 days. There is no specific antidote, although various treatments do exist.:
What, pray tell might be the toxic dose? Well, actually, any dose. The stuff is so nasty, the instructions literally say: "take one every x hours until vomiting, nausea, and/or the other nasty symptoms kick in, and discontinue immediately". Most patients I know of, that means they get to take ONE. Last week there was a day where I had to take 3 in a 30 hour period.
Why do I clarify this? Well, because of how much grief it causes my parents when they know I'm here poisoning myself just to make some pain go away. Of all the things to happen, to add to their burden of worry is one of those things that just gets to me like few things ever do.
Anyway, there have been some pretty bright spots through the month so far, though. Wonderful times spent with friends...a serendipitous series of reversals of the immobility just in time to handle two events that lifted the spirit and made me grateful all over again for those in my life.
Still, some days, you just have to say it like it is. It sucks. It sucks, and I'm still going to get up tomorrow and see what else has to be done to move me on down the path towards graduation. But, I doubt it will suck any less. :)
Thanks for putting up with the rant. G'night all...
Yup.
see more Funny Graphs From: http://graphjam.com/2009/08/21/song-chart-memes-last-words/
It's a Shrodinger's cat problem - you don't know whether it exists or not till you go looking for it, but the very action of looking for it causes the probability to collapse to ABSOLUTELY and there are ####'s of people who already are into that particular idea.
see more Funny Graphs
So, I do enjoy music as a generally useful way for me to express and process emotion externally rather than succumb to the throes of it myself.
While I do enjoy it very much, I guess I'm also a bit cynical about it. I find different things to identify with, be it the mood of the music...the geometry of the melody...or even the lyrics themselves. But, rarely, do I find myself feeling much empathy with/for the actual artist composing the lyrics. After all, in my cynical worldview, most artists are quite self-serving exhibitionists - trying to demand the world share in their feelings. And yet, many of these "feelings" are magnifications of relatively minor life events, at least compared to the overall suffering in the world. Yes, you wrote an awesome song about heartbreak...when your 92nd girlfriend dumped you because she couldn't stand the celebrity spotlight and your coke habit. Sounds great, and even some good words...but not much empathy on this end for WHY you wrote it. I'll just enjoy it for what it brings to me, not what it brings to you. Not unlike the sick relationship between a john and a hooker - the john could care less why the hooker is doing it, or what drove her to it: he's here to enjoy himself, whether it be with a happy and well-adjusted individual living out a life of freedom and choice, or a wrecked emotional shell on last legs.
So, I admit...I love the music, but rarely the artists. I'm bad like that.
Anyway, a few artists have personally struck a chord with me over the years. I won't go into all of them right now, just the most recent one. I was watching a recording of a live concert James Blunt did this week, and I found out some more about his background and history of at least one of his songs. I must admit, I enjoyed his music, but never really dug deeper than that. Turns out he was quite the bright young man in school, coming from a long line of fine military men, and even did a stint in the service himself. He ended up in Kosovo in 1999 for part of his duties, and according to Wikipedia was the first British officer to enter the Kosovo capital. It was while in Kosovo that he penned the song "No Bravery" (see below).
Now, I liked this song to begin with. I thought it was good writing, and good music. I enjoyed his delivery of it on his album. But, to know the true depth behind the experience in the song, and specifically the event linked to the writing of those lyrics...made me enjoy the song that much more.
Not often that it happens, but when it does, it always makes me just a little bit happier for that week. :)
This one made me actually laugh...out loud....and heartily.
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-12-07/
I've actually sat in cubicles within earshot of the dreaded "person with a-hole significant other that MUST call incessantly every 25 seconds until their beloved...or object of their possessive obsession...finally picked up.
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-07-04/
I have actually attended this meeting:
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2004-01-18/
Hehehehehehehehehehe....liberal art's majors. :)
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2005-04-28/
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2005-04-29/
The true work-life balance equation at MOST places...
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2005-05-24/
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2005-05-27/
Reasonable - meet your natural enemy...
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2005-07-07/
This is no exaggeration. I've been in the meeting where the guy that wasn't there was given the same treatment in absentia...
From: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-10-04/
--
The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
Quotes by Scott Adams, either as himself or as one of his characters (many from "Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!):
"Sad ness is just another word for not enough coffee." - Wally
"Science is a good thing. news reporters are good things, too. But it's never a good idea to put them in the same room." - Scott Adams
"If you think that offering excellent reasons for your thinking will change anyone's mind, you might be new on this planet." - Scott Adams
"It's important to agree with people if you want them to think you are a genius. For most people, the definition of smart is 'Thinks exactly like me, but even more so'." - Scott Adams
"My favorite conspiracy theory is the one that says the world is being run by a handful of ultra-rich capitalists, and that our elected governments are mere puppets. I sure hope it's true. Otherwise my survival depends on hordes of clueless goobers electing competent leaders." - Scott Adams
The visitor steels himself. Decided upon his unpleasant task, He braces and widens the breach. A peephole becomes a gash.
The piercing light dispels the gray, Dancing off the dry, dusty air. Illumination invading areas long dark, Exposing the gray drabness, dispelling dusk.
The Old Fool pauses mid-greeting, Interrupting the welcome of a guest long gone Something is not right, something's awry. Intruders, party crashers, personae non-gratae!
The visitor lowers himself into the room, Standing in the bright center of light Cast by the gash across the gray cocoon's walls. Backlight by the breach, his presence an outline.
The Old Fool stares aghast at this mirage, This ghostly intruder into the Ballroom's troupe Though milky eyes are no longer reliably sharp, The invader's presence looms unequivocally.
This unwelcome guest, his own Red Masque of Poe, Can bring no welcome news, no additional joy. Frozen in place by Prospero's fears revived, The Old Fool trembles as the apparition draws near.
The visitor approaches slowly, gingerly, gently, Not wishing more harm than will already be done. At last, face-to-face with the tired old man, The Visitor gently, kindly, sorrowfully reaches out.
Touching the withered, dusty shoulder, the Visitor says, "Friend, you don't know me, and I know you not. But I looked in your Ballroom, and was compelled by this sight. I am ashamed to admit, I fought the urge to take flight."
The Old Fool flinches, this touch though gentle and light Feels repellent, repugnant, dangerous, and unwelcome. He hears the words, but cannot understand how this intruder Could consider the splendor surrounding them a plea for succor.
But even as the Old Fool opens his dry, dusty mouth to retort The shimmer and glow seems to take on a pallor, The epicenter of this grayscale shift centered on the visitor The Old Fool closes his mouth, and reels at the unfolding sight.
"No!" the Fool finally gasps. "Whoever you are, whatever you want, Please, leave me tonight. Let me welcome the rest of my guests. Let me dance to the music, let me enjoy the kitchen's delights. Whatever you thought to say, I beg...stay your tongue - at least one more night."
The gentle grip becomes firmer, a grasping motion by the visitor. He centers himself before the Old Fool, looking straight in the dusky eyes. The voice of the visitor, thought firm, sounds gentle and filled with sadness, "No, my friend. I cannot leave you here, not like this, not tonight."
"Condemned only by your own heart, but condemned nonetheless, I cannot leave you here to toil through another fruitless excursion through limbo. It is time to awake, to accept, and yes - even to suffer, my friend. Together we will walk out of this farce, this lie, this facade and welcome life again."
As the visitor continued to speak, the milky eyes darted about in growing horror, As the glittering room seemed to shimmer at an increasing rate, Yet growing grayer and dimmer with each pass of the eye, like approaching a desert mirage, The shimmering waters always receding, at each step being replaced by dry, dusty sand.
"NO!" The gasp becomes a plaintive wail. "Mercy, mercy I beg! Leave me be, Leave me be, you menacing beast, you Masque, you Gray Death! Stop changing the room, stop casting your spell, just leave me to my guests. Go! Go! Go, and let your dusky mirage follow you on out and back down to hell"
With tears in his eyes, the visitor draws the sobbing man close, Though the Fool pushes away, the strength has long gone from these old, dusty bones Leaning in towards the ear, the visitor whispers as he cradles the frail body, "They have gone, long ago, my friend. And now it is time for you to let them all go."
The sobbing Old Fool's last strength sweeps away, stopping his futile struggle. The sobs slow down, and the Fool speaks again, though hushed and low - nearly a whisper. "I tried, long ago...I tried, and I failed. Now, please let me return to my failure. Let and old man spend his days with those cherished and dear, those loved and admired."
"Look up, my friend, look up and see me. See me, and see the real, do this, I beg." The Old Fool hesitates, pauses, delays - unwilling to take the next step, And yet, consumed by a morbid desire to know the face of his tormentor, the Fool slowly complies. As his eyes rest upon the shape of his torment, the proximity sharpens the features once gone.
The Fools eyes widen, his surprise naked and evident, as the countenance comes into focus. "No! You cannot be..." the Fool blurts out, but the visitor interrupts quickly, "I am not the person you think of. At least not quite. I am his son, his only progeny. And when I was a child, he would tell me stories, but the saddest of all he kept from me."
"But when he passed, I discovered his letters, and came across your own correspondence, And then his subsequent notes about what he believed had once transpired. Worst of all, I discovered a clue as to your fate, but could never surmise a location. I searched far and wide, and have found you at last, and I'm here to free you from your nightly repast."
By now, the Fool's gaze is focused solely upon his unwelcome guest with the face so familiar, And as he does, the sounds of the music fade, the scents of the kitchen vanish, And finally the true pallor of gray settles over the rest of the area. As the Old Fool looks into the familiar, yet new, face...the room comes back into focus.
With a cold shiver, the Fool slowly looks around the unmasked room, it's truth now denuded. And the horrible reality of that truth takes grip in his heart. With a low moan, so horrible and painful that the visitor starts and then trembles, The Old Fool confronts the true scope of the loss - the one loss most unbearable.
"No! No! No! I cannot...I cannot. Please, please, please...do not make me remember..." "But you must, my friend. Remember, and be free." "I cannot, I must not. Don't do this to me, I beg you, grant mercy and kindness, in the name of your father!" "This is the mercy, this is the kindness, and this is done in the name you invoked."
"They are gone, my friend. Gone one by one, they have moved on to rest and peace. All but one. One who has chosen suffering, despair, and delusion as a prison. And yet, a prison built by his own two hands, condemned by his heart to an infinite term. The time has come for you to let them go...free them, and free yourself."
The Old Fool returns his gaze to those kind, blue green eyes...
A wandering old fool. See the blog's title and description.
George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
Albert Einstein: “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”
"Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character."
Ayn Rand: "Government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."
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