Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day. We were sitting around the house, not doing much after discussing going down for the free inaugural concert, but had decided against it after considering the cold and the crowds.
Well, after watching a stupid movie, I changed the channel to live pictures on CNN of all the people celebrating and waiting on the show to start, and it got us talking. We didn't go downtown to celebrate on election night because we had to work the next day, and we can't go to the inauguration itself because we have to work. It wasn't worth sitting this one out. We hastily put on several layers and drove to the Metro station. It wasn't that crowded. We rode the train into Metro Center. It was crowded there, but not chaotic. We took the orange line to the Smithsonian stop, and when we emerged from the steps out onto the street, it was totally surreal. There were jumbotrons on Independence Avenue. There were people literally everywhere - in the trees, on the curb, running in the streets. There was someone every few steps selling various Obama-related merchandise. It was really like Bonnaroo had landed on the National Mall - except that it was about 25 degrees outside.
Protected by our many layers and undaunted by the cold, we pushed forward as far as seemed safe. We got to just behind the WWII Memorial, which is still a good quarter-mile away from the Lincoln Memorial. We got there a little late, so all we got to see as far as the concert went was Beyonce's song and Obama's speech at the end. This was fine, because the party and the spirit of the moment continued on for quite a long time afterward. We walked around and took some pictures. Then we took some pictures for other excited couples who wanted them, and then we had someone take ours. It was really ethereal and amazing.
We wanted to avoid some of the foot traffic, so we took the long way around the Holocaust Museum. We walked for a while before realizing that the guy in front of us had cameras and paparazzi following him. We just kept on walking, not knowing who he was, other than a really tall, well-dressed man in a fedora. We had to pick up on the context clues from passersby. Eventually we deciphered the name Rick Fox. "Who the hell is he?" I said. We're not sports people. Apparently he's a retired NBA player. People were just turning and gawking at the guy like he was the messiah returned. How strange it must be, I thought, for that to happen whenever you walk down the street. All because he can play basketball really well. It's just weird how we elevate people to such heights. I worry that my fanatical love of the President Elect is derived from the same hollow place, but I decide that it is not. He can play basketball pretty well, too, but that doesn't have anything to do with it. He's a true leader. An unapologetic intellectual who has come along at precisely the right time. If we hadn't elected him, we would be in for at least four more years of anti-smart, anti-science, pro-divisiveness. With all the current crises, we just couldn't afford to make that kind of mistake. The faith that I had lost in the American public over the last eight years has been mostly restored.
We got back in line for the Metro and Mr. Fox continued sauntering down the street with jaws dropping and his name being excitedly whispered behind him like a trail he'd left to find his way back to his hotel. The Metro was impressively well-run and organized. The Transit Authority cop kept us at the stop of the stairs while the trains loaded to avoid a frenzy of overcrowding on the platform. The trains were loaded up without too much hassle, although I did see a lot of impatient out-of-towners shoving through to get on as soon as the doors opened. We managed to get seats right away and prepared to ride back, still buzzing from what we had just been through. It would have been more fun had the train not begun to make me motion sick. I spent the rest of the ride turning as green as my hoodie, leaning my head back, and breathing deeply to keep my lunch down.
We got back and felt like continuing the celebration, so we got some wings and beer and watched the concert in its entirety on TV. There is really something to be said for being able to turn on CNN and say, "You know what? Let's go down there and be a part of that!"
With that unexpectedly wonderful day behind us, I had to get up at a quarter to six this morning to go in to work early to finish a TPS report. It chose to do this rather than staying late on Friday. I might as well get used to getting up that early for the next few days, because we agreed to take care of the farm animals while the landlords are away until Thursday. This sounded much easier than it is. Feeding the alpacas is no big deal. They're just big rabbits, anyway, and they only go where their stomachs carry them. The difficult part comes in corralling the pony.
I have never liked horses. My mom goes absolutely gaga over-the-moon for them, and I've never understood why. They're huge. If that animal wanted to, it could crush my skull like a cantaloupe. It was too late now, though. We agreed to do the job, and it was up to us to corral a pony in the pitch black, snowy, frozen night. It was not fun or romantic. The latch on the gate was frozen. We dumped some hot water on it to get it open. This immediately opened the latch and froze my hands to the galvanized steel gate. I was glad to be wearing thick leather gloves. I cracked them off of the metal and walked past the bucking pony, over to close the barn door.
My flashlight went out.
That little bastard. I picked it especially for this task because it's been the most reliable flashlight I've ever owned. It's the first LED flashlight I ever bought, and it's been on the same set of batteries for just about eight years now. It's at least as miraculous as a former NBA player walking down the street, and now, when I need it most, it has let me down. I smack it around obligatorily, like a doomed teenager in a slasher movie. It flickers dimly, but I can see well enough through the flickers to get the door closed.
Snow reflects moonlight very well, so at least I can see to walk back over to Hillary and a very excited pony. She is bucking and jumping and is happy to see us, mostly because we have treats and carrots. She starts trying to eat my sleeve, and I tell her "NO," and smack her on the side of the nose like I was told to do. She doesn't like this, and turns around to threaten to kick. I jump out of the way and realize what a miserable time I am having. Cats do not turn around and break your ribs with a kick. They do not need to be fenced in, and they certainly don't try to eat your sleeves. The pony finally walks through the other side of the frozen-solid gate and follows us back to her pen. She is brand new at being a pony, and as far as I know, this is her first snowfall. It doesn't seem to bother her in the least. She runs and jumps and chews on my sleeve. I am now resigned to this, because it beats a kick in the chest.
I made it back inside, and felt like I just had to write a blog about Bonnaroo in the middle of DC, and my first experience corralling a pony in the freezing darkness, with a broken flashlight and a pocketful of carrots.
The last two days have been very strange and surreal. I had better get ready to make it three in a row tomorrow.
Keep fighting the good fight (against the ponies)
Paco
Denial is the Only True Path to Happiness
Posted:
Saturday, January 17, 2009 –
The title of this blog represents my basic take on life. I thought I should start it by explaining this phrase and laying down my philosophical point of view.
Most of my ideas aren't new. I didn't realize this while I was growing up, of course. It simply took me a long time to discover that others have felt and still do feel the same way, and that I am not sick or perverse or doomed to an unhappy life.
I must start with the first point, but it has already been made, and can't be stated any more elegantly than it already was by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus:
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer [the questions of suicide].”
This may sound frightening, but it is not meant to be. You must decide that you want to keep on going and that you want to explore what life has to offer. You must decide that you want to do this even though you realize that in the end, when you strip it all away - the cities we live in, the new record you just bought, the book you're reading, all the people you know, all the people who have come and died before you - do not matter at all. Not one bit. In a hundred years, none of the people alive today will be here, and they will only remember us by what we leave behind. This fact alone is enough to drag you to your knees if you dwell upon it, but it gets worse if you keep digging.
At some point, I will be gone and forgotten. On the grand scale of time, my lifetime is not even a grain of sand on the beach. In the grand scheme of things, not only will my existence here not be missed, it won't even be noticed. Neither will yours. If you're reading this on a computer screen, think about where the keyboard and mouse will be in 25, 50, 100 years. They won't matter anymore either. Your house, your car, all those years you spent learning in school - focusing all your energy on learning a trade or specific skill set - they're meaningless.
You can be nice or you can be mean. You can commit a crime, drink, do drugs, or be totally straightedge and run for political office. Given a long enough time frame, none of it will matter to anybody. Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. He was a great man. Like other great men to whom he looked up, he was shot and killed, and died before his time. This was a sad and terrible thing. So, like Ghandi and Lincoln and Jesus, King will be cherished in the hearts of the world for a very long time. He was such an extraordinary person that his message continued to be influential even after his passing. It is good and right that we recognize him with a holiday, but that doesn't change the fact that eventually, no one will care anymore. No one will recognize his name. In enough time, the human race will cease to be. We may destroy ourselves with technology. A comet may come and wipe us out like a bad Hollywood movie. Maybe it will be a terrible disease. Even if none of these other things do us in, eventually, the Sun will implode and become a black hole, ending human existence for good. The minute that you just spent reading that paragraph is gone forever, and you are one minute closer to the void. I just posted this blog on the only Jan 17, 2009 that there ever will be. It's never coming back. That picture of me on the side of this blog was taken on a beautiful day that is gone. All we have is now, and it will soon be a distant memory.
And that is only the depressing stuff that is related to the arrow of time. The other thing that we must take into account is the fact that all religion is bogus. You can get mad at me, or pray for me, or whatever you need to do, but you can't change my mind because you can't change a fact.
Nobody ever came back from the dead. No one is watching you or throwing down lightning bolts from the heavens. There are no heavens to watch or throw from. It has all been invented by humans as a means of coping. People have always been afraid of two things - death and the unknown. They invented great stories of men in the stars and oceans, and of women who would come down and seduce mortals, and of a dead man rising and walking from a cave; all to make themselves feel better. Deeply, you know this is true, even though you may reject it outwardly. When the Pope takes his gowns off to go to bed at night, he thinks about it. He knows it's all as meaningless as anything else, but he continues on for the sake of keeping the peace. If you need this crutch of religion to cope in your life, by all means, use and enjoy it for all the good it does, but know that is also causes a lot of heartache and pain. Of course, in the end, the heartache and pain don't matter, either.
Ever since I was a little boy I have been haunted by these facts. I would wake my mother up, wailing in my bedroom at night because I was afraid to die. After philosophy class in college, I would sit in my car and cry like a baby, seriously not sure if I should turn the key or step out into traffic. I would close my eyes and think of not existing at all - knowing that one day, my lungs will stop oxygenating my blood, my body will stop converting sugar into energy, my heart will stop, and I will cease to be. There is no getting around it. It took me years to develop the maturity necessary to accept this fact. I had to accept that in this respect, I am not special. It will get me like it has gotten everyone else before me. If I let it, it will paralyze me. I will not care about getting up in the morning and getting ready for work. I could stay in bed all day and get bedsores, or I could go rob a bank, because in the end, it really doesn't matter.
So why shouldn't I just end my own pathetic existence now and get it over with? By eating right, exercising, and taking care of myself, I am only delaying the inevitable. There is no really good answer. I simply have to decide that life is worth experiencing anyway, and that I want to try to enjoy it.
In the past, I have used some solid scientific and philosophical principles the way others use religion.
The first of these is Nietzche's assertion that when the universe is your stage, improbability ceases to be a factor worth mentioning. Space has no edge. The universe is the only thing that is truly infinite. It cannot end. Knowing this, we can now conclude that since the space is not finite, all possibilities, however remote, exist somewhere out there in the vastness of the universe. This means, among other things, that no matter how unlikely it may seem, there is another me, typing away at his keyboard, and there is another you, reading his words on a time delay after he has posted them on an interactive system their planet calls the internet. In fact, out there somewhere, you are being born again to your same parents in the very same hospital. There is also another place where you have already grown old and died, and that is part of the flaw if you are looking to this theory for consolation. You don't know these other worlds, nor will you ever. Yes, you yourself do, have, and will exist again, but if you're being selfish about it, your current consciousness won't know about it even if one of your other selves goes on to live forever.
If that one fails you, don't worry too much. You may find comfort in parallel universes if you wish. The idea is that we know only this particular universe, but there may well be other universes just outside of here. Every time a decision is made, we go one way, but another universe branches off, going the other way. This is explained best in the the example of Schrödinger's cat. The cat is in a sealed box along with a very weakly radioactive element. The element is so weak, in fact, that it may emit enough radioactivity in one hour to set off a Geiger counter inside the box, which is set to release a hammer if it detects any radiation. The hammer will smash a bottle of acid, killing the cat - but only if the Geiger counter goes off. There is an equal chance that within the one hour period, it will not. Thus, at the end of the hour, just before you open the box, the cat exists in a state of quantum limbo. He is neither living nor dead. He exists in two states at the same time - in two universes at the same time. What this means for you, the atheist looking for comfort, is that you are out there many, many times over in these parallel universes. In fact, whatever ultimately kills you will probably not kill you in another parallel universe. If you have a horrible car accident and die on the way home from work tomorrow, there will be another you that swerved just in time and will soldier on. However, he will eventually die too, and again, you don't share his consciousness.
So there it is. I choose to put my chin up and carry on here while I've already died in a skydiving accident in a parallel universe. I know that I will ultimately perish and that ultimately the people who care about me will perish too, and that eventually there won't be anyone left to remember any of it, but I persevere thanks to a positive attitude filled with a haughty mixture of acceptance and denial.
I cannot let myself succumb to the depressing truth. I must have a healthy respect for it but denial sure helps me sleep at night. I must continually convince myself that life is worth experiencing, however brief it may be. You can rationalize or seek solace wherever you want, but you are merely pushing it to the side, and that's fine. Every once in a while, feel free to have a good cry or breakdown over it, but for the sake of your overall state of well-being, I thoroughly endorse denial.
It's the only true path to happiness.
Paco
This new blog was inspired by something that I said in my last Myspace blog (which does, in fact, have an RSS feed, as you can see in the column to your left.)
Most of my ideas aren't new. I didn't realize this while I was growing up, of course. It simply took me a long time to discover that others have felt and still do feel the same way, and that I am not sick or perverse or doomed to an unhappy life.
I must start with the first point, but it has already been made, and can't be stated any more elegantly than it already was by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus:
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer [the questions of suicide].”
This may sound frightening, but it is not meant to be. You must decide that you want to keep on going and that you want to explore what life has to offer. You must decide that you want to do this even though you realize that in the end, when you strip it all away - the cities we live in, the new record you just bought, the book you're reading, all the people you know, all the people who have come and died before you - do not matter at all. Not one bit. In a hundred years, none of the people alive today will be here, and they will only remember us by what we leave behind. This fact alone is enough to drag you to your knees if you dwell upon it, but it gets worse if you keep digging.
At some point, I will be gone and forgotten. On the grand scale of time, my lifetime is not even a grain of sand on the beach. In the grand scheme of things, not only will my existence here not be missed, it won't even be noticed. Neither will yours. If you're reading this on a computer screen, think about where the keyboard and mouse will be in 25, 50, 100 years. They won't matter anymore either. Your house, your car, all those years you spent learning in school - focusing all your energy on learning a trade or specific skill set - they're meaningless.
You can be nice or you can be mean. You can commit a crime, drink, do drugs, or be totally straightedge and run for political office. Given a long enough time frame, none of it will matter to anybody. Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. He was a great man. Like other great men to whom he looked up, he was shot and killed, and died before his time. This was a sad and terrible thing. So, like Ghandi and Lincoln and Jesus, King will be cherished in the hearts of the world for a very long time. He was such an extraordinary person that his message continued to be influential even after his passing. It is good and right that we recognize him with a holiday, but that doesn't change the fact that eventually, no one will care anymore. No one will recognize his name. In enough time, the human race will cease to be. We may destroy ourselves with technology. A comet may come and wipe us out like a bad Hollywood movie. Maybe it will be a terrible disease. Even if none of these other things do us in, eventually, the Sun will implode and become a black hole, ending human existence for good. The minute that you just spent reading that paragraph is gone forever, and you are one minute closer to the void. I just posted this blog on the only Jan 17, 2009 that there ever will be. It's never coming back. That picture of me on the side of this blog was taken on a beautiful day that is gone. All we have is now, and it will soon be a distant memory.
And that is only the depressing stuff that is related to the arrow of time. The other thing that we must take into account is the fact that all religion is bogus. You can get mad at me, or pray for me, or whatever you need to do, but you can't change my mind because you can't change a fact.
Nobody ever came back from the dead. No one is watching you or throwing down lightning bolts from the heavens. There are no heavens to watch or throw from. It has all been invented by humans as a means of coping. People have always been afraid of two things - death and the unknown. They invented great stories of men in the stars and oceans, and of women who would come down and seduce mortals, and of a dead man rising and walking from a cave; all to make themselves feel better. Deeply, you know this is true, even though you may reject it outwardly. When the Pope takes his gowns off to go to bed at night, he thinks about it. He knows it's all as meaningless as anything else, but he continues on for the sake of keeping the peace. If you need this crutch of religion to cope in your life, by all means, use and enjoy it for all the good it does, but know that is also causes a lot of heartache and pain. Of course, in the end, the heartache and pain don't matter, either.
Ever since I was a little boy I have been haunted by these facts. I would wake my mother up, wailing in my bedroom at night because I was afraid to die. After philosophy class in college, I would sit in my car and cry like a baby, seriously not sure if I should turn the key or step out into traffic. I would close my eyes and think of not existing at all - knowing that one day, my lungs will stop oxygenating my blood, my body will stop converting sugar into energy, my heart will stop, and I will cease to be. There is no getting around it. It took me years to develop the maturity necessary to accept this fact. I had to accept that in this respect, I am not special. It will get me like it has gotten everyone else before me. If I let it, it will paralyze me. I will not care about getting up in the morning and getting ready for work. I could stay in bed all day and get bedsores, or I could go rob a bank, because in the end, it really doesn't matter.
So why shouldn't I just end my own pathetic existence now and get it over with? By eating right, exercising, and taking care of myself, I am only delaying the inevitable. There is no really good answer. I simply have to decide that life is worth experiencing anyway, and that I want to try to enjoy it.
In the past, I have used some solid scientific and philosophical principles the way others use religion.
The first of these is Nietzche's assertion that when the universe is your stage, improbability ceases to be a factor worth mentioning. Space has no edge. The universe is the only thing that is truly infinite. It cannot end. Knowing this, we can now conclude that since the space is not finite, all possibilities, however remote, exist somewhere out there in the vastness of the universe. This means, among other things, that no matter how unlikely it may seem, there is another me, typing away at his keyboard, and there is another you, reading his words on a time delay after he has posted them on an interactive system their planet calls the internet. In fact, out there somewhere, you are being born again to your same parents in the very same hospital. There is also another place where you have already grown old and died, and that is part of the flaw if you are looking to this theory for consolation. You don't know these other worlds, nor will you ever. Yes, you yourself do, have, and will exist again, but if you're being selfish about it, your current consciousness won't know about it even if one of your other selves goes on to live forever.
If that one fails you, don't worry too much. You may find comfort in parallel universes if you wish. The idea is that we know only this particular universe, but there may well be other universes just outside of here. Every time a decision is made, we go one way, but another universe branches off, going the other way. This is explained best in the the example of Schrödinger's cat. The cat is in a sealed box along with a very weakly radioactive element. The element is so weak, in fact, that it may emit enough radioactivity in one hour to set off a Geiger counter inside the box, which is set to release a hammer if it detects any radiation. The hammer will smash a bottle of acid, killing the cat - but only if the Geiger counter goes off. There is an equal chance that within the one hour period, it will not. Thus, at the end of the hour, just before you open the box, the cat exists in a state of quantum limbo. He is neither living nor dead. He exists in two states at the same time - in two universes at the same time. What this means for you, the atheist looking for comfort, is that you are out there many, many times over in these parallel universes. In fact, whatever ultimately kills you will probably not kill you in another parallel universe. If you have a horrible car accident and die on the way home from work tomorrow, there will be another you that swerved just in time and will soldier on. However, he will eventually die too, and again, you don't share his consciousness.
So there it is. I choose to put my chin up and carry on here while I've already died in a skydiving accident in a parallel universe. I know that I will ultimately perish and that ultimately the people who care about me will perish too, and that eventually there won't be anyone left to remember any of it, but I persevere thanks to a positive attitude filled with a haughty mixture of acceptance and denial.
I cannot let myself succumb to the depressing truth. I must have a healthy respect for it but denial sure helps me sleep at night. I must continually convince myself that life is worth experiencing, however brief it may be. You can rationalize or seek solace wherever you want, but you are merely pushing it to the side, and that's fine. Every once in a while, feel free to have a good cry or breakdown over it, but for the sake of your overall state of well-being, I thoroughly endorse denial.
It's the only true path to happiness.
Paco
This new blog was inspired by something that I said in my last Myspace blog (which does, in fact, have an RSS feed, as you can see in the column to your left.)
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