Part I:
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)
This week’s book:
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
Picking up where I left off with Seneca’s letters to his friend and student, Lucilius Junior, an official in Sicily.
On Philosophy and Friendship:Here Seneca starts with a contrast of Stoicism with Epicureanism. He says that the wise man for Epicurus doesn’t feel any troubles, but the Stoic wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them. i don’t know enough about Epicureanism to know if this is a fair critique or not. Assuming it is correct, I think feeling your troubles and being strong enough to overcome them is preferable to not feeling them. If you have learned not to feel your troubles, what happens when you have a severe problem that you can not overcome without feeling the stress? It would be easy to collapse if you aren’t used to dealing with a struggle. I would rather have the experience of overcoming real hardships and building fortitude that way. Seneca then goes on to say that in both philosophies the wise man is expected to be self sufficient. Even though a person may be self sufficient, there are many reasons to want true friendship. He also warns Lucilius that looking for friends to ease your own troubles will lead to “friends” deserting you when you actually have troubles and instead to look for friends so that you can ease their troubles. As a person with few friends all of this makes sense to me. Since I became an adult and had some fair weather friends I learned to be more selective about who I was a freind with versus those I was a casual acquaintance of.
On the Blush of Modesty: This letter begins with Seneca praising the understanding of a friend of Lucilius and when the friend was praised he had a natural blush from embarrassment. Seneca then goes on to discuss natural nervousness and how even the seasoned Stoic, master of his motions cannot control the initial reactions of his body, and even skilled actors can’t fake a blush. I have the natural reaction of anger sometimes and have improved greatly. As I type this, my Austarailian Shepard is barking at my Huskimo and that will drive me insane, if I let it. Last year I would have let it. Seneca closes with a quote from Epicurus about having a role model with strong character and living as though that man was watching you all the time. How easy it is to be doing the right thing when someone you respect is watching. I try to do this, using my wife as my guide. if I wouldn’t do it in front of her, I shouldn’t do it and that really helps to keep me straight. I have been accused of being too straight by my mother, and I acknowledge there is some truth to this. I try not to judge other people by my standards and also try not to judge myself too harshly so I mostly manage to keep some balance. I love the final line of this letter:”You can never straighten that which is crooked unless you use a ruler”.
On Old Age: Seneca has noticed he has gotten old. The house he built when he was young, trees he planted and saw their first leaves, and the son of one of his slaves that he has owned forever have all gotten old under his care. Now that these things have all shown him his age, he reflects on the fact that young and old alike should be ready for death and says no one is too old to want to keep living. He is also happy to not have the appetites of a young man and instead can enjoy a simpler life. He also says every day is equal so you should be ready for the end every day. He then describes a man named Pacuvius that would stage a funeral for himself with a feast everyday. Senaca says this was done for selfish reasons and instead we should be glad to have lived and the course fortune has set is finished. He closes this letter with another quote from Epicurus, “It is wrong to live under constraint, but no man is constrained to live under constraint” I think this means that it is up to you whether you live in bondage or not, regardless of your reality. Seneca then explains that he quotes Epicurus freely because the value comes from what is spoken, not who is doing the speaking. I am currently 51 years old, so I understand Seneca’s confusion on how things that were once new and young have turned old under his care. I try to remind myself that age is a blessing, I have an easier life now, and I can afford to do more things I enjoy now that were out of my reach when I was younger. I have recently started working out again after a 6 month break caused by a combo of injury and laziness. I feel better during the day now, but I am not getting back in shape as quickly as I remember. No matter what I do, I will get older and weaker, it is my choice if I let this happen to me or if I fight it every step of the way.
I did not plan on writing so much for just a few letters. Let me know if you like this style or if last week was better with a shorter synopsis for more letters.
Music this week is The Cult.
When I worked at Club Rock America in Kinville Okinawa, I played this one a lot:
This one kicks pretty good:
Not sure about the beret, but I like the song:
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day.
And laugh a little too: NHL star Ivan Provorov declined to participate in the Philadelphia Flyers’ Pride Night or wear a rainbow-colored jersey, saying if he wanted to support the gay agenda he would have played soccer instead of hockey.
At publishing time, the NHL courted more controversy after several players refused to wear sparkly princess dresses on Trans-Awareness Night.
ALOL!
Wow.
That’s getting shared widely!
I laughed, then went to the Bee homepage and lost a half-hour in other great stories.
That is the plan, I keep wanting to kick my own ass for the time I lost after my back healed, but I have to deal with where I am, not where I wish I was or think I should be.
Thank you,
“Old age should burn and rave at close of day.”
I struggle with this. Death is inevitable. Your burning and raving won’t change that and can be a net negative for you and those close to you.
And with modern medical technology, death can be postponed, if you are willing to live as a burden on others and with a (very) low quality of life. Maybe its the difference between existing and living. I think there are a lot of situations where the “right” thing to do is let nature take its course.
Drooling on yourself in an assisted living facility isn’t burning and raving. Hemingway probably had it right.
Wait until the January 25th, 1900 post comes up!
MUHUHUWAHA.
Throw back to 123 years ago?
I think it’s more a matter of fight like hell until it no longer makes any sense to keep fighting.
As per usual, I agree with RCD.
I am, in many ways, with RCD here. I know that my body, and possibly my mind will fail me at some point, and I do not want to be a zombie living via machine. But, no matter, I will keep myself going at the speed and strength of that body in its time.
4×20
Burn
He also says every day is equal so you should be ready for the end every day.
Such a simple sentence that’s nearly impossible to live up to!
Thanks, Ron! I’m enjoying this format a lot.
And the Cult is one of my favorite bands from the good days. I’ll contribute this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6PgftKbQnQ
I think Ian Astbury went through more drummers than Spinal Tap.
All I’ve ever heard is that he was a royal prick.
Saw him in concert back in 92.
Yes, total prick, even on stage.
Kinda like Harry’s?
Glad you like it.
I like The Cult, not one of my all time favorites, but they have some great songs.
“It is wrong to live under constraint, but no man is constrained to live under constraint”
Moderation in all things, including moderation.
Say, shouldn’t we be celebrating? This is the last day of Biden’s administration, right?
Depends on how hot the fire is outside this frying pan.
+1 sensible chuckle
That’s not a beret. It’s akin to an officers cap with a snap and a small hard bill in the front. Looks a little like something a certain group of people in power in a particular country in Europe around the middle of the 20th century wore, but smaller.
It looks like a feldmutz.
I knew I’d lure someone out who knows what it actually is!
OK, I guess I should have said that I’m not sure about the officer’s cap with a snap and a small hard bill in the front.
For this non fashionable guy, it’s close enough to a beret.
I went digging into what exactly that cunt Sam Harris had said.
His argument was basically he is disappointed covid wasn’t more dangerous and the vaccines weren’t more effective because then arguments about bodily autonomy would have been shut down. Yes, he truly is a cunt.
If everything had gone my way, then I would have been proven right. No shit.
You left out the weirdest part, his strange obsession with dying and dead kids.
First, the statement about not caring if Hunter Biden had dead kids in his basement and then an implied remorse that kids weren’t dying because people weren’t frightened enough into believing and obeying the elites’ every word.
He’s an evil sack of shit.
“If more people die there will be less resistance to tyranny.”
It’s remarkable how disconnected they’ve become from reality. They’re not even bothering to hide their disdain for the masses anymore. They truly don’t expect any repercussions from it.
Even Fauci has enough sense to not cut fully loose with what he really thinks.
Dave Smith and Robbie did a good job of tearing it apart.
This.
I suppose he is not familiar with the Nuremburg Code.
The government obviously isn’t.
The Government: “It’s a very effective tool for punishing our enemies.”
“See, We know what it is!”
Whoever the fuck Sam Harris is.
Coffee table Science Guru for the NPR/NYT crowd.
I think he’s like Neil deGrasse Tyson.
A smart person in one area that thinks that makes him smart in all areas.
Except Harris is actually intelligent. completely and totally morally bankrupt, but intelligent.
Tyson is a blithering idiot who somehow attained notoriety as being smart, kind of like Bill Nye, but for adults.
I don’t know anything about Tyson and I never heard him say anything impressive.
I tried to watch his show Cosmos, but bailed after the second episode, it was too snarky and smug without being interesting.
I guess I always assumed he was actually smart at being an astrophysicist, but I have never seen any evidence that he has a superior intellect.
You got further than me.
After the first five minutes when he turned it into a CLIMATE CHANGE WILL KILL US screed, I turned it off.
He is an irrational person that once pontificated about a fantastical place called Rationalia.
HAHAHA – first question in the thread: what is a rational policy on immigration?
I would submit that NdGT is not particularly smart in that one area. “Smart” relative to the general population in that area perhaps, but really suited to the bureaucracy and ‘EPO’ (education and public outreach) arena in that field. A roundabout way of saying very bottom end of the field in the group of practitioners, somewhat higher in the general public.
Doesn’t diminish the observation that he’s arrogant enough to think that this ‘stature’ in the public-realm in that field translates to he should have stature in every other area he decides to open his pie-hole about.
I think NdGT made his biggest splash, like many leftists with nothing to contribute, by tearing down something traditional: he was the one who pushed the “Pluto is not a planet” narrative.
BTW, I prefer this format to the daily small blurb format. FWIW.
Thanks, it’s actually easier to write a little more long form.
Exactly
Sam has written 3 books about how he doesn’t understand faith or why people have it.
While he bemoans the lack of faith in our ruling caste.
Faith in experts is totally different than faith in gods and priests, nah-nah-nah!
Sam Harris
Science Guru for the NPR/NYT crowd.
Ah. Member of the propaganda priesthood. Got it.
Dave Smith said he was a Neo Con.
I don’t know, I never heard of him before his being OK with Hunter killing kids if that’s what it took to keep Trump out.
I have my doubts on any consequences based on the way the vast majority rolled over on Covid.
People still had access to most things and were still comfortable. Take away certain foods and other life pleasures/luxuries and see what happens.
Might be wishful thinking on my part, but still.
The State kept booze, lottery and cannabis stores open in IL…they knew what they were doing. “Essential businesses”.
Look at what the PA residents did when the liquor stores closed…
I had booze shipped to my doorstep and my gf make NJ shopping runs.
Ohio banned PA residents from the Ohio liquor stores because they were coming over in droves. I though NJ did the same for a while.
She had no trouble.
“Commerce Clause? What’s that?”
21st Amendment jacked that up for booze.
2nd amendment laughs at your commerce claws.
We are all just two meals away from eating our neighbor’s pets.
And then our own.
People still had access to most things and were still comfortable.
People literally had their livelihoods arbitrarily destroyed, had shortages of various essentials imposed on them, were prohibited from going to work, going out to dine, seeing loved ones in care facilities, had an experimental shot mandated in many cases, and they didn’t do shit. I’m not sure what level of discomfort is needed for a reaction, but it seems to be more than “You can’t have pork anymore, but you can have beef and chicken.” or “We are going to limit the amount of hard liquor you can buy over a certain time period”. We all know that would just be the first click of the ratchet, but most people don’t see it that way.
It’s for our own good really.
They have our best interests at heart.
Look, a free vacation by train!
Oh, the brochure for the camp makes it look wonderful – exercise, fresh air, comradeship.
It sounds very freeing.
With you. Don’t depend on the legislature to save us. Don’t depend on the courts to save us. Don’t depend on someone in the ‘elite’ class to save us. And definitely don’t depend on our fellow citizens to save us. The vast majority will adapt and avoid conflict. Humans are adaptable – an admirable trait evolutionarily, maybe not so much in a ‘civilized’ environment where it’s susceptible to exploitation by tyrants.
Some pretty smart guy said people were far more disposed to tolerating the evils of tyranny than to risk the uncertainty of shaking them off. But I think he was old, white, male – so what could he possibly know?
I know it wasn’t *here*, but in Australia they turned the entire country into a jail, and there was nothing like a mass revolt. They’ll just do what they normally do, slowly boil that frog by making the “bad stuff” more expensive and harder to get, before completely phasing it out, and outside a few grumblers like us, it will happen without resistance.
The part that I’m still trying to wrap my head around is the decriminalization of marijuana while ratcheting up the prohibitionist rhetoric when it comes to alcohol.
Something’s up. Even Minne is considering recreational weed. And yes, there are anti-booze articles everywhere.
Oh, I get the plan for that – the crackdown won’t be because it’s illegal, it’ll all be about the taxes.
Now that these things have all shown him his age, he reflects on the fact that young and old alike should be ready for death and says no one is too old to want to keep living.
Speaking of attachment to the known…
what if death is just a doorway to a new adventure?
“what if death is just a doorway to a new adventure?”
You go first, I like it here
🍻
Doesn’t matter if you go first or last, you’re going.
I don’t fear death….I fear judgment.
“It’s judgment that defeats us.”
–Colonel Kurtz
I don’t fear judgment – I already know I won’t measure up.
↑
I’m with Max Stirner on judgement. The only judgement that matters to me is my own, irreducible, inescapable, implacable.
Yeah; God is going to judge you harshly for your hatred of puns. 😉
Obvious is obvious, but not without willingly.
Except Harris is actually intelligent. completely and totally morally bankrupt, but intelligent.
One of those ends-justify-the-means guys, is he?
Utilitarian to the very rotten core
All you dumb people that believe stuff – never mind what I believe in. He’s so smart he can’t see that he suffers from the same defects the rest of humanity does. He should just change his last name to Hubris.
It is somewhat amusing to watch him wrestle with the fallibility of his church and fail miserably at it.
Utilitarianism is ethics for midwits. It lacks any moral guideposts, and begs the core question of what, exactly, we should be trying maximize. Add in the infinite flexibility of determining the upside and downside of any proposal when operating in a moral vacuum, and it can justify any prior you care to put to it.
If Covid had been caused by sanctimonious dipshit podcasters, there would have been even less patience for Sam Harris’ continued existence.
He is no doubt a champion of gain of function research, because that is SCIENCE!
Sam has written 3 books about how he doesn’t understand faith or why people have it.
It sounds like he has plenty of unreasoning/unquestioning faith in Teh SCIENCE! of Speculative Epidemiology.
A mask certainly LOOKS LIKE it must do something, and that’s good enough for us.
One of the great, most basic flaws of a human being is to become really, truly smart about one thing – and thinking that makes you smart about anything else.
It’s what I like about good engineers. They’re unfailingly brutal in their assessment of shit that doesn’t work.
Brutal, but polite.
OT for a moment:
As an editor, I want to thank everyone for their recent submissions. We have some pretty good material coming up. I hope you all take encouragement from seeing posts from a variety of the Glibertariat, and realize that you too can put finger to keyboard and create the tremendous content for this here site! The best and bigliest fun around.
Also, in the coming Spring, we will have new, non-Pay Pal ways to part with your pocket change.
Thanks, Swiss!
Yay!
non-Pay Pal
Super sweet. Thanks.
Yay! I wish to give you much money!
Also, can we fire up a barter site? Maybe send you a goat or two to help defray server costs.
My cats do this too.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/01/utah-doctor-arrested-giving-saline-shots-kids-instead-vaccines/
Fucking heroes.
Note who the victim is here.
Put me on the jury.
And the people making the arrests are the ones who say we need an amnesty for the people who believed in lockdowns.
(May be late to this I hardly come on here anymore) I’ve liked seeing recently that it now seems as if the media does not want Biden in office anymore. Especially now after years of scandals, he and his family have gotten away with. Now with these documents, he is not supposed to have been found they just happen to be in “small amounts” in like 4 different places in his home and other properties. He is no longer in a place to shame Trump for keeping his documents in Mar-a-Lago, regardless if he accidentally took them or not. Hopefully, this now means we can get back to non-senile men in office. In 24′ republicans need to run on the right things like the economy and not abortion and other pro-Trump ideals. Republican women will vote all republican but in KY with our abortion bill, it got struck down.
I still do not believe this means he is out. The media is confused, doesn’t know how to cover this scandal. It is a scandal they can just barely ignore, like the Paul Pelosi scandal. The special investigator appointed to cover this is a deep-state rat who will most likely say “no harm no foul.” Which pains the state, as the desire to hang Trump with classified records was strong. The state cannot hang Trump without Biden also hanging. And if Biden is out, Harris is in. Nobody wants that. Even worse, if Harris gets pushed out as well (very likely) you have a Republican as Speaker of the House. He’s third in line. This is a real rock and a hard place brought about by the constant bubbling of criminal activity from the Biden clan. Obama put it best: “Never underestimate the power of Joe Biden to fuck things up.”
At this point I’m with you on this. At first I thought for sure, he’s on the way out. But usually if there are marching orders, you’ll see everyone in the media saying the same thing, even down to the wording. Way back in the day Rush Limbaugh used to put together montages of media people saying the same words over and over. But that’s not happening now. Strange.
Hopefully, my family can get a rooster and reproduce with our hen so we can then be millionaires selling eggs.
Better up your security.
How about one of these?
Update on my mom: She’s home now. The cultures grew nothing, and they don’t know what caused her knee to collect blood like that, but nothing came of it and they don’t have to do anything, so all’s well that ends well. *end drama*
<==
You caused Mojeaux’s mom’s knee to collect blood?
Great news!
That’s great, hope it’s not a recurring problem.
I’m skeptical when doctors say they can’t figure out why something happened by it should all be good now. But hopefully it was a one-off thing.
I expect it’ll happen again.
Excellent. Let the good news keep coming.
May your drama remain ended.
Good to hear.
Good news. Hopefully that’s case closed.
Good to hear, Moj
Wednesday Pitch Meeting
As long as its not a completely original idea… LMAO
That was good
Hilarious!
From there, I went to the Rings Of Power Pitch Meeting. Yikes.
I did too. “stop doing that”
It sounds just as stupid as I would have thought.
I picked up on all of those watching the show… still liked it. 🤷♂️
I liked it too. It was fun to watch, and I like all the little nods to the original TV show.
Did he ever do the pitch on Dune – because really, even with a good script, you could savage that.
they don’t have to do anything
Awesome.
The next thing they are attacking the gays with.
Health authorities in Massachusetts announced Thursday they have identified two cases of a new strain of gonorrhea that appears to have developed resistance to a broad swath of antibiotic treatments.
Both patients got better after getting injections of ceftriaxone, the main drug currently recommended to treat cases of the sexually transmitted infection. But state health officials warn the strain that infected them shows signs of at least some resistance to almost every drug to treat the bacteria, the first of its kind confirmed in the U.S. to date.
Investigators are now working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test other samples collected from gonorrhea cases in the state. Massachusetts is also conducting contact tracing to find out if the drug-resistant strain has spread to others.
I wish Zelensky would impress these cuntes into service.
Graham speaking in Kyiv: “If Putin gets away with this, there goes Taiwan. If Putin’s successful in Ukraine and isn’t prosecuted under international law, everything we’ve said since WWII becomes a joke. He will continue beyond Ukraine.“
And find himself necessarily in a hot war with NATO, which is the thing he has repeatedly stated he did not want? Lindsey, you dishonest cunte.
If you watch Oliver Stone’s Ukraine documentaries, you will see that disgusting shitstain following right behind McCain as they staged the 2014 coup, started the war in the Donbass, and began laundering money through there.
I’ll read this next week. I’m kinda busy with work and other things.
I’ve been falling down on my Stoicism lately.
I saw the Cult in ’89. Good show.
But, speaking of music, has anyone seen Madonna’s latest? Moths really do fly out of her cucci! And tree’s grow from it, also!
https://motherofcreation.xyz/ (nsfw)
Pass
You know, even when I was a kid, I knew she wouldn’t go away quietly. I had hoped she would be savvy/vain enough to know that when her time was up, “desperation” would not be a good look. I get it that she has to work and be busy, but there are other creative things to do in the world.
You’d think that someone with her kind of money could get a better plastic surgeon.
Agreed. I think time would have been kinder to her than that hack.
Well past the shock phase and into the what the fuck phase.
Grossness factor aside, that’s not even good CGI. Pure garbage.