Smallhouse Log

Thursday
"Scientists don't have time to be figuring this stuff out; they need to be doing Science!" -guest lecturer, 01/15/2007

On further consideration, my time among the hedonists might also have made a contribution.

And I know I this isn't something I should be proud of, but I ate pizza for every meal yesterday. And not the same pizzas, either.

First Sunday after Epiphany

Awhile back, I made the social mistake of admitting to a certain person by the name of Lucy that I thought of his brother, myself, most of our common acquaintances, and most likely this Lucy himself as bad persons. Now, I don't remember how it came up, but it wasn't an unsolicited confession. I mean, I know a lot of bad people. "Bad person" is a pretty easy definition, and a pretty easy thing to be, of course. But I can't think that being a good person is all that hard either. But defining a good person, is that hard? Or am I just so out of touch with such a state of existence that it has become a thing difficult for me, as the particularly bad person I've become?

Now, I don't mean to make anyone be all like, "Oh, you, you're not blah, you're blah blah blah; you always blah when blah." I know I sound all angsty; I may not be fully literate, but I'm not fully illiterate, either. I don't think that tone can be avoided when one, being in a state of developement, discusses that development. Thus, editors. I don't have one.

Anyway. I've been a bad person for a very long time, and I'm not sure I'd want to be a good person -or rather, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be one- in any case. People are too squishy. I think they need to be. Whatever, I'm not an anthropologist. But.

So, I've been typing out of order. Linearity is so constraining, but, as mentioned, trying to cut back on the hyperprose. I'm going to recap.

  • People are squishy, I don't want to be one.
  • Thus, some of my anti-personal behaviors, id est, being a bad person.
  • Already a somewhat bad person, I enter college. The removal of stabilizing influences allows me to become a worse person without much effort at all. Also, I meet a lot of new bad people, the company which individuals I tend to enjoy, due to the increasingly intolerable aforementioned squishiness of people in general. Surrounding myself with those who either intentionally or inadvertently shy away from personhood...
  • Actually, ignore that last bullet point. It's a load of nonsense. I just continued to be less and less personable.
  • This failed to turn me into a transparent and cold calculating machine, however.
  • Noticing this, but being -as is a common characteristic to bad people- lazy, I did not bother to do anything except descend further away from personhood.
  • It's come to my attention that this is no longer a recap. It's another common characteristic of bad people -perhaps the most common- that they don't care about things.
  • At some point in the past half-year, I realized that being a bad person is essentially unrewarding. This seems like it should have been obvious. Perhaps it is.

So then. What to do. Attempt a different tack to becoming the Ubermensch and correct my behavior only as necessary for that, or just concentrate on changing course, even at the possible cost of [returning? entering?] full-time into the human race? There is, of course, a third option, but, well, third options are for horseshoes and hand grenades.

Maybe I've just been reading too much of Il Pricipe. But me oh my, that last section is some of the most beautiful prose I've ever seen. It's a good book.

Didn't mean to end on a downer, there. It's all Greek with me.

The following Tuesday

I have nothing to eat over the next two days (until I get my first paycheque, hopefully) except rice and lentils. I am going to smell terrible.

Epiphany

Machiavelli on the importance and proper management of advisors: "For being of a secret disposition, he never discloses his intentions to any, nor asks their opinion; and it is only when his plans are to be carried out that they begin to be discovered and known, and at the same time they begin to be thwarted by those he has about him, when he being facile gives way. Hence it happens that what he does one day, he undoes the next; that his wishes and designs are never fully ascertained; and that it is impossible to build on his resolves." Hmmm.

I found it amusing when taking the train the other day to see a man sleeping slouched in his seat, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People open on his chest.

Ninth day of Christmas

"I had a dream the other night, when everything was still. I thought I saw [redacted] a'coming down the hill. The buckwheat cake was in her mouth, a tear was in her eye."

Why does that seem like the saddest thing I've ever heard?

The seventh day of Christmas

I just had the best food of my life. It was at the best party of my life. I've never planned anything a year in advance before, but I want to go to this party again next year.

The fourth day of Christmas

So despite the machinations of Weatthorr, our favorite resident prince of the air, I am with family, eating fudge and vegetables with various dips. But not in South Dakota, and not in the time frame I'd hoped. Missed my grandma's birthday party. Didn't get to see any friends. Woe is me. But I did hitch down to the other side of the family's party in southern Illinois, to which my nuclear family had also trucked. They brought a present for me, wrapped in the robot paper I bought to wrap things last year. Awww.

Now that all is good in my world, I wish to share some holiday joy. Ladies and gentlemen, some holiday music.