I am alive and typing on my laptop computer

Dear diary,

Is there really something called a "cat snack chat app"? I heard someone utter that phrase yesterday; or at least I thot that I did. So it's like an application for your mobile device which allows you to chat with your cat about snacks, or something? I don't know much about the subject (I've never claimed to own another soul) so I can only guess what the average cat might want to disclose about herself on such a forum; but, doing my best, I can imagine:

Were I a pet cat, I'd text my owner as follows.

My favorite snack is tuna; my second favorite is catnip; and my favorite of all is mouse-flavored goldfish crackers. I also like small birds.

*

That opening paragraph, or rather everything above the asterisk, was just a joke to warm up my audience. I was told to start with a joke: that way you'll break the ice, and the people will love you; then they'll be willing to sit thru the rest of your sermon. Also it's good to imagine your audience naked. So I'll be doing that, for the remainder of today's speech.

Dear diary,

Oops, did I already say the salutation? Sorry, I'm nervous. OK I'll start now, for real...

Thus saith the LION:

“I don’t like critics”; “I don’t trust critics”; “I don’t listen to the critics”; “I just read whatever books appeal to me: I don’t care what the critics recommend.” All these attitudes sound so strong and smart, as long as we define that term “critic” as “someone whose opinions are untrustworthy; a waste of time”. But what if a critic can get you to the good stuff faster? What if you find a critic who seems helpful?

Here’s the rub: Even if Critic X recommends 100 books, and, after reading them, you love every single title, how can you know that, if you’d simply chosen 100 books on your own, or listened to the recommendations of Critic Y or Critic Z, you would be more or less pleased? Perhaps you’d be equally pleased. The problem is that we’re mortal: we have a limited time here in hell; so we must try to make the best of it. We can’t relive or live-over the exact same 40 years of our life, to test an hypothesis scientifically.

But say that you read the top ten book recommendations from Critic Y, and then you do the same for Critic Z, as well as Critic X; so now you’ve read thirty books, and your reaction is that Critic X’s top ten become your new favorites, whereas the remaining 20 titles from Y and Z fail to delight you — let’s say that you even hated these last 20 titles. In that case, I wouldn’t blame you for following Critic X’s advice for the rest of your life. Especially if every book that you’d chosen on your own, till the day that you encountered Critic X, was less than satisfying.

. . . we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among “the children of this world,” in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion — that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.

That’s the famous Conclusion (it’s literally the conclusion to the Conclusion) of Walter Pater’s The Renaissance.

I was gonna say more about critics, but now I think I’ll move on. I’ve been stressed lately, and it’s better that I allow myself to wander in my thots, rather than to stick to the topic against my fancy.

*

I’m glad I don’t have a headache today. Yesterday I woke up with a headache, and it continued until evening. I don’t know how other people deal with pain. I can’t even tolerate minor pain. (I barely even like pleasure.) I hate my life so intensely that I can only stand living if I feel 100% blissful. Bliss, I’m convinced, is a memory from Eternity. Any path that does not lead blissward should be called a Road to Rome — I mean, we should clearly label its signpost — so that wise souls can avoid it.

Now, when I say “I hate my life”, I mean I hate my situation here: my place in society & th'economy (by "place" I mean lack thereof). For, consider what I SHOULD be, if the world were truly fun:

In society, I would be the leader of a synagogue church or mosque that honors ART and whose deity is the Poetic Genius. Basically I would be a pataphysical priest. This is where I would, or rather should be in society; but where I actually AM is under a stone. I’m in a rocking chair in a cage. Locked up in a dungeon.

The corner in which he sat was curtained off from the sun, the poor old sun in the Virgin again for the billionth time. Seven scarves held him in position. Two fastened his shins to the rockers, one his thighs to the seat, two his breast and belly to the back, one his wrists to the strut behind. Only the most local movements were possible.

[That's a quote from the very beginning of Samuel Beckett's early novel Murphy. But, now, back to where I AM versus where I should be — this time with regards to the economy:]

And as for the economy, where I am is broke and low, but I should be living like a king. I should enjoy comfort and security. And I only say “king” because what’s mine is yours, to all. I don’t believe in property or possessions. I only want enough power to realize my potential; but since my potential is high, I do deserve to have a lot of power. It’s hard to understand what I mean by this, because everyone with power at present is a very bad handler: You’d be surprised what power can do, in the hands of a gentle·soul. I’d bring Earth back to Paradise. So I’m pissed cuz here I am: trapped online.

CONCLUSION

I hate the church because I should head the church. And I hate the Powers that Be because I deserve the power to be, which they deny me. And I hate every aristocracy that’s ever existed because I am an Aristocrat of the Spirit, so I hold all the contemporary members of that sector as mere frauds. (Do you understand now why I refer to myself as Satan? I’m the prime adversary to the God of this World. My Kingdom is elsewhere.)