Dizzying Thoughts on Death, and the Dawn of Ritual

My kids both want to be ghosts for Halloween, so here was my suggestion. They were freaked. They kept asking what they do. I kept saying, "Nothing, they are just like pictures in a book." That freaked them out more.

October 23, 2021

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On this day in 2022 Bryce Harper's 8th inning home run puts the Phillies ahead for good against the Padres, clinching the franchise's 8th National League pennant in their 139 year history.

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I was just dancing around my room so long that when I stopped to look at my phone again I had a whole slew of texts all saying some variation of, "UNBELIEVABLE!"

October 23, 2022

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Extract from the Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus:

“Take the habit of thinking that death is nothing for us. For all good and evil lie in sensation: but death is deprivation of any sensitivity. Therefore, knowledge of the truth that death is nothing to us, enables us to enjoy this mortal life, not by adding the prospect of infinite duration, but by taking away the desire of the immortality. For there is nothing left to fear in life, who really understood that out of life there is nothing terrible. So pronounced empty words when it is argued that death is feared, not because it is painful being made, but because of the wait is painful. It would indeed be a futile and pointless fear than would be produced by the expectation of something that does not cause any trouble with his presence.

And that of all the evils that gives us more horror, death is nothing to us, since we exist as ourselves, death is not, and when death exists, we are not. So death is neither the living nor the dead, since it has nothing to do with the former and the latter are not.

But the multitude sometimes flees death as the worst of evils, sometimes called as the term of the ills of life. The wise, however, does not ignore life and did not afraid of no longer living, for life he is not dependent, and it does not consider that there the lesser evil not to live."

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Great news everybody- we keep rounding the corner!

October 23, 2020

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I just sneezed in Aldi and pulled every muscle in my body trying to contain it.

October 23, 2020

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I voted this morning, and I'll be damned if that wasn't the most enthusiastic vote of my lifetime.

October 23, 2020

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This is something I've been thinking about! Back after 9/11 Bush constantly talked about how safe he kept the country, all the while ignoring 911! It's the Karl Rove tactic of turning your greatest weakness into your greatest strength... and turning your opponent's greatest strength into the greatest liability (swift-boating.) Republicans have been in charge for 2 years, and here we are... are Democrats making the point that Republicans are weak on immigration??? Democrats can't even make the obvious point, that Trump is perhaps the most fragile human being to ever walk the earth. He's not tough! It's the classic schoolyard bully scenario.

October 23, 2018

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Huh...I just played the word MEWLER in Scrabble the exact second someone on TV said Mueller. How often does that happen?

October 23, 2017

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Happy tenth birthday to Brain Pickings.

The 10 most important things Maria Popova said she has learned. Read the article for more context.

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.

2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone.

3. Be generous.

4. Build pockets of stillness into your life. 

5. When people try to tell you who you are, don't believe them.

6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.

7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” 

8. Seek out what magnifies your spirit. 

9. Don’t be afraid to be an idealist.

10. Don’t just resist cynicism — fight it actively. 

October 23, 2016

Postscript- Brain Pickings became The Marginalian and apparently she added 6 more lessons:

11. Question your maps and models of the universe, both inner and outer, and continually test them against the raw input of reality. 

12. There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

13. In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again.

14. Choose joy.

15. Outgrow yourself.

16. Unself.

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Gretel tripped and skinned her hands a bit. She decided that rubbing them with acorns would make them feel better, and it did. I witnessed the dawn of ritualistic behavior.

October 23, 2016

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I got some low fat milk and some heavy cream off the free skid at work. Does anybody have a good recipe for 2% milk?

October 23, 2015

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Tina Fey's evidence that God has a sense of humor: squirrels eating pizza with their hands and suicide bombers blowing themselves up before they get to their destination.

October 23, 2014

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Realized tonight that half the t-shirts I wear to racquetball were give-aways from surgery centers and physical therapy clinics that I went to due to racquetball. Feeling like: a pawn in some strange game.

October 23, 2014

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I'm currently losing the war I'm waging against my body, but I guarantee I'll win in the end.

October 23, 2011

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Kelly Oxford- "As kids we want to be adults who 'can do whatever they want' and as adults we wish we were kids who 'can do whatever they want.'"

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It's somehow unnerving to see the Phillie Phanatic stand so silently and respectfully during the national anthem. I like to think he's a maniac at all times.

October 23, 2010

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On this day in 1933, in Greencastle, Indiana, John Dillinger and his gang robbed the Central National Bank of $75,000. That would be over $1.5 million in today's money.

"You can get more with a simple prayer and a Thompson sub-machinegun than you can with a simple prayer alone."

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Johnny Carson join us on this day in 1925.

"For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off."

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Philip Kaufman was born on this day in 1936, director of The Wanderers, The Right Stuff, Quills, and more. 

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Pelé was born on this day in 1940. here are ten "most impossible" goals, haha.

https://youtu.be/WXg8P0u9W9I

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Dwight Yoakam was born on this day in 1956. I love listening to him talk about the history of country music, and I also liked it when he plum near got his head cut in two in Sling Blade.

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"Weird Al" Yankovic was born on this day in 1959. One time I had a dream that he was the new ace closer of the phillies. A week or two later he came to Park City to sign autographs so I went to get one. I had him sign my baseball and told him the story. He said, "That's scary." You know what this means? It means that for at least one second of his life, "Weird Al" Yankovic thought I was weird. For one second of my life I was "Weird Ben" Kreider.

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Augusten Burroughs was born on this day in 1965.

"Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face."

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Emilia Clarke was born on this day in 1986.

“Never argue with someone whose TV is bigger than their bookshelf.”

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Zane Grey left us on this day in 1939.

"Recipe For Greatness - To bear up under loss; To fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief; To be victor over anger; To smile when tears are close; To resist disease and evil men and base instincts; To hate hate and to love love; To go on when it would seen good to die; To look up with unquenchable faith in something ever more about to be. That is what any man can do, and be great."

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Mother Maybelle Carter left us on this day in 1978. Here she is singing Wildwood Flower, from another planet.

https://fb.watch/gl1grOPVLH/

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NPR- 30 Years Of 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot,' The Classic 'Cult Classic' Film

Quite a moment in time, perfectly captured.

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/22/498827998/30-years-of-heavy-metal-parking-lot-the-classic-cult-classic-film

October 23, 2016

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The Hill- O’Reilly: I’m ‘mad at God’ over allegations of sexual harassment

This just in: Bill O'Reilly believes he's God.

http://hill.cm/MhPYGoa

October 23, 2017

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The Hill- Georgia GOP candidate expresses concerns about opponent’s voter turnout

Funny country we live in now... I'm going to guess that this intent to undermine democracy (no hyperbole) is more apt to boost his votes.

http://hill.cm/4VnVY8o

October 23, 2018

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The Hill- Judge orders Postal Service to restore high-speed mail sorting machines

"I win, or the election is rigged." Trump's famous anti-democracy catchphrase. Sure, maybe it's rigged against him, despite any evidence.

Let's take a minute for a thought experiment though. Imagine that Trump is currently running against an incumbent Hillary, and a majority of Trump supporters plan to vote by mail (because of the pandemic, duh), while a minority of Hillary's supporters plan to vote by mail, and imagine that Hillary's recently appointed Postmaster General (a big campaign donor with no Post Office experience) decided to rip out all of the high volume sorting machines a month or two prior to the election. Do you get the idea that Trump might currently be screaming that she was rigging the election against him??? Would he be right?

Both candidates need to be ready to concede if they lose, and both candidates have a right to contest the election. The weight of their argument would be dependent on the evidence. I'm just hoping it's not even close, and we have to worry about any of this avoidable nonsense.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/522422-judge-orders-postal-service-to-restore-high-speed-mail-sorting

October 23, 2020

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Whoa, dizzying thoughts on death. Since we change throughout our lives, essentially from one person into another, could it be true that there is some sort of baseline consciousness, separate from our individual experiences we believe define our selves? That might sound like metaphysical gobbledygook but there could be a philosophical argument for it.

I liked this passage:

"Consciousness itself never has a beginning or ending for itself, from its point of view. This does have implications for how we think about the nothingness that bounds either side of our lives. As Clark points out, the time before your birth is not an abyss from which you managed to escape, and by the same token, the time after you die cannot be some sort of oblivion. From the point of view of consciousness, there is something eternal about its being what it is. At this moment, from your point of view, there was never a moment that you didn't exist, and there won't be the time at which you were existence will end. "

I'm not sure what I think about this, but interesting to consider.

This link is probably behind a paywall.

https://samharris.org/subscriber-extras/263-paradox-death/

October 23, 2021

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Errol Morris- "Why can't they give monkeys awards for not coming up with stupid ideas humans have come up with?"

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Mark Twain- "No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot."

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Aldous Huxley- “The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.”

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George Santayana- “The wisest mind has something yet to learn."

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Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living: 

We must be willing to get rid of

the life we've planned, so as to have

the life that is waiting for us.

The old skin has to be shed

before the new one can come.

If we fix on the old, we get stuck.

When we hang onto any form,

we are in danger of putrefaction.

Hell is life drying up.

The Hoarder,

the one in us that wants to keep,

to hold on, must be killed.

If we are hanging onto the form now,

we’re not going to have the form next.

You can’t make an omelet 

without breaking eggs.

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Nietzsche- "Man is the cruelest animal." 

(In my experience, maybe cats.)

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Norm Macdonald- "All my life’s about is cracking up people and them cracking me up and trying not to think about dying. That doesn’t cost very much money.”

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