Schopenhauer

Dumb people have no reason for living. Except perhaps for brute labor, I guess.

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On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man’s experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences. This is in the highest degree the case with many of Goethe’s and Byron’s poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful.

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All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison.

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An intellectual man in complete solitude has excellent entertainment in his own thoughts and fancies, while no amount of diversity or social pleasure, theaters, excursions and amusements, can ward off boredom from a dullard.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer, “The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims”

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But it is not like our creative geniuses are always the most happy people, either, and happiness is what this book is supposed to be about.

your seventy-one-year-old father's geriatric sex

Few things can be more demoralizing than being overcome by the noises of your seventy-one-year-old father's geriatric sex. Sure, it's with a granny, but still - that only makes it more disturbing.

Though, I wouldn't mind being able to go on with my life, such as it is, into my seventies (provided that I find the means to subsist on my own somehow), that my vitality could so persist. To be sure, we are only talking about another twenty years, but I would take it. Oh, yeah, I would take it, even if just to read and blog.

Dot.Book?

Amazon keeps getting cockier. You might think that the company would be getting humbler after all the rumblings and push-back over its e-imperialistic aggressions, but no. Amazon has bid to attain the '.book' domain - a dot.something all its own. The Association of American Publishers has sought to thwart this move, but in these dark times, surely anything can happen.

I mock, but I am one of Amazon's e-serfs and will probably never expand much beyond Amazon when it comes to my e-commerce. So, I wonder whether what may be good for Amazon may be good for me too. But talk about e-hubris!

(Source: Andrew Albanese at Publishers Weekly

Hamlet (3,4) A Rash and Bloody Deed

The freshly bleeding corpse of Polonius still lies hidden behind the arras, unidentified as yet by Hamlet. Gertrude cries out:

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

Hamlet is quick to take back the mantle of righteousness from her and shoots back:

HAMLET

A bloody deed? Almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

As kill a king!

HAMLET

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

( Read more... )

Daylight Saving Time

Wow, it is Daylight Saving Time. Of all places, I learned about it in a 'free for all' post at the "ONTD Creepy" community. In recent years, the occasion slips past me more easily. I feel that one of my news sources should keep me caught up on this clock-changey thing. Not that it matters a whole hell of a lot. One just hates rude surprises.