by liberal japonicus
I tend to think that one of the best things about talking with lots of people via a blog is the way others can, if you are open to it, remind you of things that you liked as well as put you on to things that when you find them, you wonder how you could have lived without them.
With that in mind, Russell mentioned Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins. I was a huge Walker Percy fan in college, and his name has been mentioned here from time to time, but this time, in conjunction with cleaning my office and not going anywhere in August, has me pulling down the Moviegoer, which has this memorable line
The egret pumps himself up into the air and rows by so close I can hear the gristle creak in his wings.
Philosophical reflection coupled with writing like that: amazing.
For the ObWiers who aren't into fiction, you might want to try Percy's The Message in the Bottle, which deals with our last open thread topic, which is
Why does man feel so bad in the very age when, more than in any other age, he has succeeded in satisfying his needs and making over the world for his own use?
Why indeed?
Why does man feel so bad in the very age when, more than in any other age, he has succeeded in satisfying his needs and making over the world for his own use?
Why indeed?
Man does not live by bread alone.
Thanks for keeping the home fires burning, guys — I’m off to NYC for a couple of days to help out a friend, then I’m turning around and heading off to Block Island for a week’s vacation. Sun(block), sand, surf, and swordfish, here I come!
I wish the plutocrats who are usig the Republica party as a vehicle for endig democtacy here would give that a thought or to. But some people always want more.
Have fun, Doctor Science!
Why does man feel so bad? In part, I think, because he has gained enough to see further possabilities that he has not achieved. When there is no possibility of change/improvement, there is no regret at it not happening.
Only when you can see that you (or even others) have been progressing — and progressing in the point, not just being further ahead — do you get impatient with not having gotten better still. Even worse is having seen progress yourself, but then feeling that it is grinding to a halt.
That, I think, is what is happening in the US and Europe. People have seen big improvements over their lifetimes, and feel like it should be the norm. But they also do not see much prospect for their children to have the same experience. So it isn’t that things have gotten worse, necessarily, just that they have stopped improving constantly.
Anyone here ever fired a nanny and, if so, any advice?
Anyone here ever fired a nanny and, if so, any advice?
It’s never any fun letting someone go. If you’ve thought it through completely and believe it’s the only option, i.e. your nanny can’t be counseled or given additional guidance or whatever, then just tell her (my assumption is that she’s a woman) that it’s not working out and don’t go into any lengthy explanations–they almost never help and can often be counterproductive. My guess is that you can’t give her two weeks notice, so I suggest a severance check. Bummer of a way for you and her to start a weekend.
Why does man feel so bad in the very age when, more than in any other age, he has succeeded in satisfying his needs and making over the world for his own use?
I think it’s because Man is a social creature. We cannot think of such things in absolute terms; we need social recognition of our successes and social comfort for our failures. This tends to make both highly relative… “My grandpa may have been happy working on a farm until the day he died, but if I don’t make a bundle & retire by 35 I’m a failure!” &c….
Do you really think that people feel worse now than they did in previous centuries? I am inclined to doubt that. As to why all our Stuff doesn’t cause us to feel way better, well, maybe Stuff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
i really liked walker percy and the lightning thief…
oh, wait…
Why indeed?
Because (1) not everyone has done so and (2)more than a few of those that have realize their grip is not so firm.
BTW, Dr. S: When you head out to Block Island, be sure to add some insect repellent to your bag of supplies: unless things have changed recently, B.I. was a major red-zone for Lyme Disease: watch out for ticks!
McTx – thanks, that’s pretty much exactly what my wife and I did.
Do you really think that people feel worse now than they did in previous centuries?
I think the idea here is not that people now feel any worse than folks in earlier centuries, but that they don’t feel any better. In spite of the many real improvements to the basic material conditions of their lives.
There is certainly a pure, basic, survival level anxiety that is less of a factor now, at least in developed countries. A year of drought will likely not cause mass death through starvation (in developed countries, not so elsewhere). We generally don’t have to keep an eye out for wild animals. Boundaries between different human groups are fairly well managed, so we don’t worry too much about being killed or carried off by raiding parties full of unfriendly neighbors.
But we still all die, each and every one of us. In spite of medical advances, we’re still all vulnerable to killing, crippling, or disabling illnesses.
Friends and family are still often lost or estranged. Spouses and partners still sometimes decide they’d be happier without our company. Our kids don’t always turn out so well.
Or, simply enough, we ourselves don’t end up becoming quite the people we always wanted to be, or thought and hoped we might be.
All of that’s enough to keep you up at night, with or without the boons and conveniences of modern life.
From what I’ve read of Percy, those are the kinds of things he is getting at when he goes on about the basic, existential unease that is intrinsic to being human.
timor mortis conturbat me, even still. And for “mortis”, you can substitute a wide range of things.
Has any of you noticed that russell writes good comments once in a while?
Russell?
Good comments??
All of us write good comments . . . once in a while. The question is, how often?
That said, russell does seem to do a bit better than average.
thanks for the kind words, everyone, but pretty much everyone here has good things to say.
ok, not the sneaker guy. but everyone else.
thanks
Thank you, russell, for your consistently interesting comments, but also for attempting to end this lovefest – something that made me extremely uncomfortable.
Hey, people – isn’t “What russell said” enough?
Huh, did russell say something?
thanks for the kind words, everyone, but pretty much everyone here has good things to say.
Underpants!!!
Hey, people – isn’t “What russell said” enough?
Hey, sapient – “Underpants!!!”
(That’s the end of that schtick. I promise.)
underpants are good.
Underpants transcend politics, religion and class. We are all one, in our undies. Except Russell, whose briefs/boxers are a cut above, or below, depending.
Aha! Another song cue!
[audio sample here]
Sometimes what the sneaker guy has to say is what russell said. Depends on what the random cut-and-paste spambot code focuses on, I imagine.
So: not all bad.
The more references to “the sneaker guy” I see, the more mythic he becomes for me, perhaps even iconic. He’s a great and mysterious force, everlasting – yet ephemeral each time he appears. He is with us always, but just out of reach. What a curse it is to be human and to know of such things without knowing such things. Oh, sneaker guy…
That all of us, Slart, MckT, lj, Janie, and Russell, et al blog in nothing BUT our underpants is well, comforting in some egalitarian sense but also alarming, in that Slart is designing weapons systems of one sort or another, (while North Koreans, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the John Birch Society are fully clothed as they design theirs) and MckT is due in court (his pressed suit pants on the hanger inside the closet door next to his desk; how he gets them on over his spurs must be a comical hopping up and down few minutes for his beleaguered but observant file clerk) in a few moments.
I find the sneaker guy’ comments to be as interesting and on-point and thread-summing-up as, say, one’s horoscope sounds, no matter which Sign you read.
His comments make complete sense and I’m stuck dumb more often than not over how he co-opts not only what I was just going to write but also describes my essential Being, the inner unknowable naught of Countme-In (hell, I don’t even know my own name) that is not available to me for description.
Hint: it’s a Walker Percy thread!
Speaking of underpants, I remember once on a Long Range Patrol in a steaming jungle, our Lt. said ” men I’ve got good news. Today we get a change of underwear. Johnson you change with Smitty, Wilson you change with Jones, Hartwell …”. And the war went on.