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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Life in October So Far

Aside from the fact that it is my birthday month and beholder of one of my favorite holidays, I have been having quite a good October so far.

Today my copy of Fat Head and The Twilight Zone: The Complete Definitive Collection arrived in the mail, and for purchasing them Amazon.com rewarded me with five dollars worth of credit for its collection of downloadable videos, which I used to download episodes of my favorite comedy series, Monk. Also to look forward to in the mail is the arrival of my favorite periodical, The Objective Standard. Two nights ago I had the pleasure of learning that my favorite educational program, Good Eats, will be having its season premiere this coming Monday (which refutes my thought that the show had been cancelled) and will be running a two-hour special on Saturday night. Tonight my second favorite educational program, Mythbusters, is having its own season premiere.

Things to look forward to further in the month: the purchasing of Snow White (Walter Elias Disney is one of my heroes), the coming of my birthday, and the celebration of Halloween.

Life isn't worth living unless you keep in mind that which makes life worth living.

Is life worth living? Well, I can only answer for myself. I like to be alive, to breathe the air, to look at the landscape, the clouds, the stars, to repeat old poems, to look at pictures and statues, to hear music, the voices of the ones I love. I enjoy eating and smoking. I like good cold water. I like to talk with my wife, my girls, my grandchildren. I like to sleep and to dream. Yes, you can say that life, to me, is worth living.-- Robert Green Ingersoll

3 comments:

  1. Those are all great shows. I used to watch Monk all the time, then moved on to Psych; I love Monk's overly analytical and logical way of thinking and mannerisms. I remember the first time I saw Mythbusters; there was a marathon and I ended up watching for several hours straight. The two hosts go through the experiments in a very logical manner, and define terms, the hypothesis, and all the steps of the experiment very clearly and precisely.

    I had never previously heard of Ingersoll; it's refreshing to come across a radical prominent non-religious American intellectual speak about his own happiness unapologetically without reference to society.

    Regarding your sister blog, I personally prefer reading and writing personal posts, more informal "thinking out loud", grappling with questions. I used to write some long posts about politics, philosophy, etc; but it would take so long to write and edit, and I was never fully satisfied with the outcome, always thinking of something afterword I wanted to add. With the all the time I was taking to write formal blog posts, I could write a novel or philosophy text; and that's a secondary reason I decided to pursue writing fiction (beyond being interested in the art form itself).

    -Jason

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  2. " I used to write some long posts about politics, philosophy, etc; but it would take so long to write and edit, and I was never fully satisfied with the outcome, always thinking of something afterword I wanted to add. "

    I know the difficulty, but, truth be told, my other blog is treated more like a homework assignment to me (fun homework, mind you). Writing can improve your thinking skills by forcing you to put your thoughts in coherent structures. And since I'm engaged in a process of self-initiated study, writing detailed analyse not only serves as my contribution to intellectual activism, but also as education for myself.

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  3. I agree, writing essays or detailed analyses has definitely helped me to better identify and integrate concepts, as well as promote ideas and educate myself. Personally though, I'm much more interested in focusing on one or two specialized areas, and writing a book, rather than covering a wide range of issues from a general perspective. I think my long term happiness is dependent on becoming an expert in at least one specialized area that I'm very interested in; and secondarily, I think such expertise will serve to promote my ideas better and be a better means of educating myself.

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