Additionally Notable For Owning A Poodle

I've been enjoying a little stroll through the works of Schopenhaur and Max Weber, and a bit generally about pessimism and asceticism. My books are mostly packed away, in quivering anticipation of the upcoming move across the courtyard. I'm quivering, not the books. But last night I was looking for a dictionary of philosophy that I've had since university. Some of what I had learned in school came back into bold bas relief with the aid of the text I'd found. I once considered a major in philosophy, but I had a thing for primates and bones and the taxonomical classification of the tree shrew. Thus, I gave up the study of lofty notions for monkeys and early man.

Either road would have taken me here, which is nowhere of consequence.

Recently I've been curious about how an atheist could embrace asceticism. I see great merit in the philosophy, though, when considered against modern day consumerism. The value I see is as a sort of protest against capitalism and inequality. So it's not about virtuous suffering as a way of finding enlightenment. Although in a scientific pantheistic Buddhist sense I could see that, as well. But as an atheist and a radical socialist I'm more compelled by the desire to live simply for economic and class reasons. And a contrarian disposition fuels that notion. Living a ostentatious life indicates a modicum of thoughtlessness regarding the suffering of others.

Anyway, I read and thought about this stuff after Saturday Night Live last night. This morning I awoke in a state of near panic, and I haven't a clue as to why. My stomach felt as a knot and my mind raced, and I shook a bit, as well. I had a difficult time escaping the feeling that I had done something wrong, really wrong. And there was guilt and self-hatred, as well. I wondered for awhile who the hell I was, then I got up and fed the cat.

But who really give a fat fuck? Happier news concerns my father, who improves with the passing of every day. He's been in the hospital for over a week, in the ICU. But they are talking about moving him to the main hospital. From there he can come home, hopefully later this week. He'll need some tending to, which I will do happily. I miss him and our conversations about politics and movies and what-not.

There's a kid outside bouncing a cold, hard basketball. I'd like to go out and bounce it on his fat face. It's like water torture. It has a rhythm, but every so often the little prick stops briefly and then starts again. Go to the park, you little ape, it's right down the street.