Friday 24 January 2003

  • I hate being stressed about something as lame as money.  Several of my utilities require high dollar start up costs due to my lack of a utility history.  I don't know how people ever afford starting out on their own without a grant.  The fact that I've been paying at least my fair share of these utilities over the years has no bearing to them, because they have no proof in the matter.  That's logical enough, but if the account is not changing address or asking for an interruption in service shouldn't it be easy enough to assume that the roommate taking over the bills has been paying part of those bills before?  *sigh* 


    Last night Wayne had me over for his first homemade pizza.  He also served a salad made from items grown in his garden.  Both were quite tasty.  First Eric, now Wayne, who's the next bachelor who will be using me for a food guinea pig? 


    When I got home last night my computer was slower than my old dial up, so I had to defrag.  Unfortunately, I feel asleep while waiting for it complete.  But my computer is back to its normal high speed today.  :)   Yay!  Now let's hope the electricity doesn't get shut off.  :(

    Although I've long since finished The Mind Parasites, I thought I'd go ahead and leave you with this quote from page 194:



    If you look into the face of a very young baby--say six months old--and then into that of an old man, you suddenly understand that subtle quality known as life, joy, magic. No matter how wise and good the old man is, he lacks it. But if the child is happy and intelligent, it radiates this quality, and it is almost painful to see, because he obviously belongs to a brighter universe. He is still half-angel. Adults--even the greatest--devalue life: a baby trusts and affirms with its whole being.

    Among the various ideas Wilson puts forward in his book (written as Camus or Nietzsche, where fiction is really only there to teach their own philosophies), it was the one idea which rang the most true.  Is this pain that he speaks of the reason that some people do not like babies, to see or to hold?  It might just be a possibility. 


    And his idea that adults learn at some point to devalue life, yet do not start out that way certainly seems to have evidence everywhere one turns--even when I ignore the warmongering going on and just look to the everyday values in our culture. 


    More importantly, it points out to me that I, too, devalue life to a certain degree, even if I'd like to think that I don't.  When I say grace, I'm not really thankful to go for the fact that my life is continued due to the loss of another's life.  Worse, I learned long ago how to harden my heart to the news.  When I worked for a media clipping service I quickly realised I had to either harden my heart or go crazy.  That too is a devaluation of life. 


    But I pray for God's guidance, which is all anyone can do.  I may not be able to fully deprogram myself, but with God I should be able to appreciate more of the life in this world that He has created.  It's all a part of the journey towards being a better Human.  And isn't that what we all want?