Category: Philosophy

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Imminence

A friend asked me, so, do you have all your Christmas preparation done?

Heh! The simple answer is no; the more complicated answer is, is ANYONE ever COMPLETELY done with Christmas prep? It reminds me of what Lorne Michaels once said about Saturday Night Live. He said the show doesn’t go on the air because it’s done. It goes on the air because it’s Saturday night at 11:30.

Same with Christmas. It arrives on its own schedule, regardless of how much (or little) of what we’d hoped to get done has actually happened.

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Inducement

“I wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves.”

 “I wonder, Madam,” replied the Doctor, “that you have not penetration to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

~ Samuel L. Johnson

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Obstacles

The light of the full moon may be blocked by the clouds, but the tides are undeterred.

— Me

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Another time, another place, another book

This essay made me think about the experience of returning to a book I’ve read and loved.

Sometimes, in a moment of grace, I glimpse the me-of-another-time that read and loved the work enough to want to return to it again someday.

Sometimes, it’s a rediscovery, and I wonder how I ever could have forgotten it.

Sometimes, it’s a disappointment; sometimes, I have a greater appreciation that the ‘me’ of today brings to it.

It’s been said that you can’t step in the same river twice. Equally true, that you can’t read the same book twice. But you can still appreciate the view, even if it’s not exactly the same, and be glad you made the journey.

The Mirror of Erised: On Death, Harry Potter, and Retreating to Childhood Reads
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(n-1) won’t fit

  1. Go to freezer, remove ingredient for dinner
  2. Wonder why (n-1) things won’t fit back into the freezer where n things fit to start with.

I may never have to buy food again. I take things out of the freezer, and it never gets any emptier. The downside of that: I take out some things and ask myself, what did that used to be?