1984 (3,1) Still Waiting in the Ministry of Love

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Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of O’Brien and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor blade might arrive concealed in his food, if he were ever fed.

More dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other she was suffering, perhaps far worse than he. She might be screaming with pain at this moment. He thought: “If I could save Julia by doubling my own pain, would I do it? Yes, I would.” But that was merely an intellectual decision, taken because he knew that he ought to take it. He did not feel it. In this place you could not feel anything, except pain and the foreknowledge of pain. Besides, was it possible, when you were actually suffering it, to wish for any reason whatever that your own pain should increase? But that question was not answerable yet.

-- “1984” by George Orwell

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Courtney Stodden

Gotta love the bigger tits!

{ONTD}

1960s Sino-Soviet Split

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It is said that, just before the Sino-Soviet split, Nikita Khrushchev had a tense meeting with Zhou Enlai at which he told the latter that he now understood the problem. “I am the son of coal miners,” he said. “You are the descendant of feudal mandarins. We have nothing in common.”

“Perhaps we do,” murmured his Chinese antagonist.

“What?” blustered Khrushchev.

“We are,” responded Zhou, “both traitors to our class.”

-- Christopher Hitchens, “Jessica Mitford’s Poison Pen” in Arguably

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UT

I certainly don't remember that. All I got was a stupid postcard.

Suicide

Apparently there has been a significant uptick in suicides. In this article on the phenomenon, we get this interesting evolutionary analogy that may help to account for some suicides, particularly those committed by older people who have become somewhat invalid and therefore heavily dependent on others.

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Humans are not the only animals that commit suicide. Bumblebees kill themselves as a defense against parasites, abandoning the nest to save it. Pea aphids do something similar. They use a kind of suicide bomb that maims ladybugs, their biggest predator, to save their own kind. Higher up in the animal kingdom, male lions sacrifice themselves on the savannas: they expose their throats to attacking clans in an effort to give other family members a chance to escape. A similar instinct may still linger in our DNA, colliding uncomfortably with the frailties and banalities of modern life.

-- Tony Dokoupil "The Suicide Epidemic" at Newsweek

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This analogy would seem to better fit a case where a soldier jumps on top of an exploding grenade to save his comrades, but I suppose it can be meaningfully stretched.

heavy-duty blahs

Feeling the heavy-duty blahs. I wonder if it is because I have been pushing off the writing. Lately, I have only wanted to read and bang out my excerpts. As for my personal writing, I have been leaning on the old rationale that the writing is just for when I have an excess of exuberance and energy. But maybe this is why I'm feeling so down.

I recall how I do feel pretty good and proud of myself when I get some writing done. The problem is that writing takes more creative energy than just banging out excerpts, and I guess I tend to just want to take the easy road. But there is the old goad: no pain, no gain. I easily lose sight of it, because, after all, what is there really for me to gain? It is not readily apparent. Nothing seems to truly matter. However, maybe the answer is my emotional well-being. I think I need to make some time for my writing. Not tonight, though. Maybe tomorrow.

Daily Fun

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