I haven't been around much of late. It's probably owing to all of the Trump talk. And I know, we have to contend with the man's words and actions because they may well be so consequential next January. But the opportunity cost is enormous. Never have so many words been printed and so many hours spent talking about such an ignorant scumbag, but he's so off-the-charts dangerously consequential! I get it, but I just don't want to swim in Trump's polluted waters more than I have to.
Accordingly, I have a few things for you to chew on, or ignore entirely. A speech for your consideration: Here's a glorious ode to science by Richard Dawkins. It has called me back several times. He's so thoroughly un-Trumpian! https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/science-the-poetry-of-reality-jewel-in-humanitys-crown-richard-dawkins/
A television show recommendation: Snowfall, on Hulu, all six seasons of it, only recently hit my radar. In a nutshell, crack cocaine has hit Los Angeles, with assistance from the CIA in its efforts to fund the Contras. It's well acted, engrossing, with a very high bodycount and almost no one to root for!
Music recommendations: My list is so long but today I'll offer up the late, quite obscure Aussie folk/rock band: Things of Wood and Stone. Check out: Single Perfect Raindrop, Wildflowers, Churchill's Black Dog, Share This Wine and Blink. Honestly, these are the perfect antidote to horrors visited upon us from Trumpistan. A brief respite for sure, but they provide a well you can repeatedly draw beauty from.
A book recommendations: Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation (how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness". This should be required reading for all educators, parents, tech industry workers, doctors, therapists, and politicians. So much life-destroying suffering, with so many parents and children feeling utterly helpless. If you have kids, especially daughters, or if you work with kids, you feel this like despair that you just can't shake.
Anne Applebaum's Gulag-A History, is also compelling, relevant, and hard hitting. The woman is a national treasure and my wife is very much aware of my crush on AA!
Quotes Quotes Quotes:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. HL Mencken
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. HL Mencken
Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. HL Mencken There are loads of other Mencken quotes on the internet. Sadly, in my reading, I've learned he was an antisemite.
If, like me, you spent hours reading "best of" quotes on-line, be sure to check out: Edmund Burke, George Orwell, Sam Harris, Robert Green Ingersoll, Hitchens (of course), Thomas Sowell (I know, he conservative, so what), Bertrand Russell, Spinoza, Daniel Kahneman, and Yuval Noah Harari. I could go on and on but you get the idea. It's time well spent!
Finally, in the many journals that I fill up, I occasionally pencil in notes for my daughter to one day read when I have exited the stage. She may well read this now because she knows that her weirdo dad has been hanging out here for a long time. Anyway, here's a recent one:
Don't surrender your mind to any dogma, ideology, or theology, to any guru, or authority figure, and certainly not to me! Remember that quote to occasionally throw a question mark on to a statement that you have long thought to be wholly correct. Think, think, think, and try to get a handle on to what is real, and be prepared, happily actually, to jettison incorrect perceptions and beliefs, however comforting they can be, if they are demonstrably proven wrong. Strive to be aware of the many cognitive biases that we evolved to have. Don't intertwine your identity with your beliefs, be a lifelong seeker of truths. Savor this ever so brief moment of existence realizing how recent real knowledge is and how fortunate you are to be in a place where the truth still matters to many people. Get outside without those screens, and run, and look at the Milky Way, and be grateful for our seemingly countless ancestors who lived and suffered and typically died all too young but they won the evolutionary contest of passing on their genes. And isn't it magnificent that we have some understanding and appreciation for them, and for the evolution that brought us here. Realize the enormous role of luck that is most consequential in life. Play gracefully with ideas and really ponder Free Will as we surely aren't the authors of our lives that many think we are. Orwell advised "to see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle". Strive to live without regrets, and as my mother advised, be kind and be decent. Be aware of Peter Singer's Expanding Circle and how we have an obligation to reduce the suffering of all conscious creatures. And hold on to your great loves and friends. Play more of the music that was the soundtrack of my time with you, and keep finding your own. All you need is love, love is all you need!
For those of you with children, or young people in your life, why not assemble your thoughts and advice for them to remember you by and perhaps help them on their journey. Peter T.
