Too Cold Outside

I let the cats out this morning, as they so dearly wished, but when I let them back inside fifteen minutes later, they are in no hurry to go back out again. It is 35 degrees out there without a speck of sunshine to grace the dreary December landscape. I guess it really is too cold for them.

Pessoa

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In recent times, souls contracted a sickness known as Romanticism, which is Christianity without illusions or myths, stripped to its withered and diseased essence.

The fundamental error of Romanticism is to confuse what we need with what we desire. We all need certain basic things for life’s preservation and continuance; we all desire a more perfect life, complete happiness, the fulfilment of our dreams and …

It’s human to want what we need, and it’s human to desire what we don’t need but find desirable. Sickness occurs when we desire what we need and what’s desirable with equal intensity, suffering our lack of perfection as if it were suffering for lack of bread.

-- Fernando Pessoa, “The Book of Disquiet”

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Well, it is surely great not to be starving and to have a place to live in, but I think it is understandable for one to be a little blue if there is no love and friendship in the mix. Loneliness will not kill you, not directly, but it can leave you wondering what is the point of it all.

1984 (3,2) Quality Time with O'Brien

After all the preliminary beatings and interrogations, Winston is now ready for the main torture show, with O’Brien at the helm. Winston is strapped down to the plank bed or table-bed; we can think of it as a sort of dentist’s chair. O’Brien kicks things off with a good dose of electrical pain that made him feel as though his “joints were being slowly torn apart” and that “his backbone was about to snap.”

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“That was forty,” said O’Brien. “You can see the numbers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to whatever degree I choose. If you tell me any lies, or attempt to prevaricate in any way, or even fall below your usual level of intelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” said Winston.

-- “1984” by George Orwell

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Coco

I almost sat on Coco. I forgot to check the chair at Pop’s computer before sitting down. I was actually in the process of squishing her. I thought cats were faster than that. Maybe she trusted me more than I thought. I hope I didn’t ruin that.