17 June 2016

From too waggish to too… something else

Dear diary,

Science tells us that all humans think of solitary confinement as the second- or third-worst variety of punishment, yet God suffers for all of eternity in solitary confinement because Science bars any Deity from interacting with humankind; or if God interacts with a human, that human is then ridiculed for being mentally unstable and a liar; plus Science prohibits God from networking with more than a single soul at a time…

None of the above is true. Either that or some of it’s true. I don’t like the tone of what I wrote; as a U.S. citizen, jokiness is a constant temptation. Why did I begin by talking about God and Science? I guess it amuses me to speak of Science as if it’s a Big Person Standing in Midair Somewhere. Like another God. I know it’s not, but that’s what makes it comical to me. We humans need humor lest we realize the fruit has gone rotten. (The fruit of existence.) Would that I had the fortitude to resist attempting any sort of punchline.

If I remember right, Uranus was ousted by Kronos, and Kronos was ousted by Zeus. I like to think of Science as the most recent winner of the High God title belt. It is wrong of me to think like this, but my mind is stupid. Blame my parents for bearing me.

Why did my parents bear me? Perhaps they thought that a little baby would be cute to look at for a while. But here is what most parents fail to foresee: When children enter adolescence, the jig is up — teenage humans are not only ugly but sinister; they’re basically Hell incarnate… plus they’re whip-smart. Teens could take over the world-reins and titivate everything in less than fifteen seconds flat.

I took a part-time job at a fast food franchise when I was still in high school, because it was the only way that my parents would let me skip church: As long as I was scheduled to work a shift, they freed me from having to sit through Sunday’s sermon. Participating in the economy (to call it that) surpassed taking part in religion, because my dad loved rightwing politics, which favored laboring for tyrants, whereas my mom loved church, which favored acquiescence to superpower; plus husbands trump wives like rock beats paper. (Does rock beat paper?) I say this facetiously.

Parenting. Parroting. Parodying. I am ready for a paradigm shift.

I love where energy is headed on the grassroots level. I mean, not just in politics but everywhere. It seems that those who’ve been downtrodden for a long while are ready to rise up and become…

Is a successor’s lone option to occupy the throne of the forerunner? I wish that the game could be changed more fundamentally, to escape the leapfrog repetition.

People in the past were able to have strokes and heart attacks without knowing what these tribulations were called. They just keeled over and felt weird pain and either died or half-continued for a spell. Nowadays we label everything neatly, and our fear has more words to play with. It’s like we’ve given fear a stack of calling cards. (I intend that last phrase to denote the small paper cards bearing a person’s name and address, sent in lieu of a social visit; NOT the small plastic cards that allow their possessor to affront the innocent from any telephone booth.)

Habit is a preserver of life as well as a killer. Too much habit is a bad thing; also, not enough habit is a bad thing. Breathing is a habit that is good; and so is eating. Or am I wrong about this? Is passing the baton in a race an evil deed, ever? What if it’s the human race? Where is the authority that can tell me whether these terms are interchangeable: good and evil; god and devil?

P.S.

I sense that whatever point I stumbled into making here is a rehash of something that never did garner much interest; so I wish that I could end on an alternate note. Being a one-note Charlie, however, I have no alternative; therefore allow me to quote the literary kingpin Samuel Johnson on the poet Christopher Smart, by way of Johnson’s biographer James Boswell, regarding Smart’s detention in the “mad-house”:

Before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.

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