Musings

Jul. 24th, 2019 03:21 pm
pjthompson: (musings)
[personal profile] pjthompson
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I've come to the conclusion that I'm not young enough to be absolutely certain I know the truth. The shades of grey multiply with each year. But that's okay. The things that important are beyond those kinds of thought processes. We can feel around their edges, if we try real hard and remember they're always changing shape anyway.

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I’ve been sick for the last few months, all sorts of unusual gastrointestinal and stomach issues, about every two weeks, interspersed with bouts of feeling absolutely fine. I finally went to the doctor last Friday. He thought it might be pancreatitis brought on by a medication he prescribed just about two months ago, because that’s one of the rare possible side effects. I’m not sure about that because people are usually hospitalized for pancreatitis and he didn’t suggest that. True, I resisted going to the doctor all that time--because that’s just what I do. I finally took myself off that medicine in late June. I’ve been gradually improving, sort of, although I’ve been sick again for the last 4 days. Each bout of this is milder than the last, but I am definitely sick of being sick. I think doc was mostly baffled by my symptoms but agreed with my decision to take myself off the medicine. He is having blood and other tests done, but no results yet.

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Today's Google doodle is quite wonderful--and quite emotional for me. Maybe it's because the moon landing was one of the seminal events of my young life; maybe it's because we had hope then that the world might come together now that we could see how tiny and fragile our Earth was. I've never had that kind of hope again--well, maybe for a short time when the Berlin wall came down. Hope is as fragile as our Earth suspended in the immense blackness of space.

I should also add that I had that kind of crazy hope again when President Obama was elected. But.

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I bet the phone answering system in Heaven is Hell.

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Great article by Maria Popova at Brainpickings: The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt on the Normalization of Human Wickedness and Our Only Effective Antidote to It

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Best fortune cookie fortune I ever got? After a long dinner conversation with my artist friend about whether we should continue to pursue our art or give up: "Art is your fate, don't debate." My friend got the same fortune. We told a mutual artist friend about it and went back to the same restaurant, partially because of the food but partially because of the fortune. We got the usual run-of-the-mill fortunes but our other friend, who had also been questioning whether to give up the art, got "Art is your fate, don't debate." #Synchronicity

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That feeling when you listen to a piece of music you loved in your youth that you haven't listened to for a long time...but it no longer works. #NotOdeToJoy

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The Universe is infinite, yet small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

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SOCIAL EXPERIMENT: Someone on Twitter posted, "If you come across this tweet, reply with the grade you were in when you had your first nonwhite teacher." Oh God. I can't remember even one, even in college. THIS IS SO BAD.

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People are surprised that a large segment of the public are credulous and strenuously resist logic. Even a casual reading of history shows this has always been so. The difference now is that we have entire news outlets and social media sites promoting the lack of critical thinking.

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Everyone is a conflicted human being. We have to admit that to ourselves or risk getting ourselves into a lot of trouble.

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It's interesting: Because I just write and push through without editing to get words on the page, my first drafts always have a lot more of my working class origins in them. I leave some of that language in if it suits the character, refine it if not.

Date: 2019-07-25 12:20 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] notasupervillain
I know a truth. It's not The Truth. But it works for me.

Date: 2019-07-25 07:56 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] notasupervillain
And I'm not going to disabuse someone of something I know in my heart to be untrue if their Truth is Good to them. I've helped religious friends over crises in faith, despite being an atheist, because being kind is far more important than being right.

Date: 2019-07-25 08:33 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] notasupervillain
Lol, somehow I'm also having this discussion in an underrelated thread. Kindness, but only if it includes to oneself, and only if you believe that justice can coexist with kindness.

Date: 2019-07-25 08:31 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] notasupervillain
I'm very curious what you mean by this!

I'm an atheist who thinks I'd be happier if I believed, but I can't. Because I have to be honest with myself, and I don't believe.

I used to. But I've lost faith in virtually everything that I thought sustained me, and yet I remain.

Date: 2019-07-25 04:10 pm (UTC)
wayfaringwordhack: (Default)
From: [personal profile] wayfaringwordhack
SOCIAL EXPERIMENT: Someone on Twitter posted, "If you come across this tweet, reply with the grade you were in when you had your first nonwhite teacher." Oh God. I can't remember even one, even in college. THIS IS SO BAD

I thought I was in this boat, too, but then I remembered my Home-Ec teacher, who was also my Spanish teacher, in 11th grade was Hispanic. I may have had other teachers who were nonwhite, but I went to 13 different schools before 8th grade, so I think I am forgiven for forgetting many of them, regardless of their skin color.

What are you writing on these days? Ramona's story? :P

Date: 2019-07-26 02:42 am (UTC)
asakiyume: (miroku)
From: [personal profile] asakiyume
Eichmann In Jerusalem--the book where Hannah Arendt first talked about the banality of evil, was breathtaking, changed my thinking. I like this quote from the Maria Popova post:

thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth that can be radical.

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