1999
● 1-2-1999: I suspect that most people who adhere to the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) do so for selfish reasons. That is, to the extent that the Golden Rule induces us to treat others well, it does so, not by informing us about what constitutes good or bad treatment of others (with the assumption that what we want is to treat others well, and wish only to know how), but rather by reminding us that how we treat others will affect our own well-being (with the assumption that what we want is our own well-being, and that we already know what constitutes good or bad treatment of others).
And perhaps the Golden Rule also acts to subtly urge our criminal justice function to punish those who treat others badly—to treat such people, who have violated the Rule, in a way similar to that in which they’ve treated others.
● Death is total peace. After this life of sore stress, death is a great bliss.
● For the unhappy, death is bliss.
● It goes without saying that it’s easier said than done. Practically everything is easier said than done. And the objection is especially inappropriate when made by a psychotherapist’s patient to the psychotherapist; because, by the very nature of the relationship, it’s the psychotherapist who must say, that is, give advice, and the patient who must do, that is, apply the advice in his own life. A sign in a psychotherapist’s office or reception area might read: “Everything is easier said than done. But our job is to say, your job is to do.”
You can lead a horse to water, but it’s up to the horse to drink.
[Later note (2021): On the other hand, perhaps an especially able therapist would understand his patient’s limitations in taking advice, and so offer alternative advice that the patient could take, which, though perhaps not solving his problem fully, might still make for an improvement.]
[Later note (5-7-2022): Not everything is easier said than done. It’s true of most things that we’re advised to do. But it’s not true of what we like to do, or want to do.]
● A middle-aged man’s belly shows the esthetic advantage of an exoskeleton.
● 1-4-1999: I think I’ve discovered why God makes life on Earth so nasty. It’s so that those who go to Heaven and experience that eternal bliss will appreciate it all the more; and to help ease the transition for those who go to Hell.
● The role of religion in morality can be summed up thus: Heaven is the carrot; Hell, the stick.
● Heaven is pleasure; Hell is pain.
● If everyone, after living a brief life on Earth, goes to Heaven or Hell and spends eternity there; then obviously Heaven and Hell are the main portion of existence. In which case, what purpose is served by this life on Earth? Why not simply dispense with it and go right to the main point, Heaven and Hell? In fact, given the relationship between them, to focus, as we do, on this earthly existence much more intently than on the “afterlife” is like the tail wagging the dog. So why do we so focus on it? It’s because what Heaven/Hell gains in magnitude, it loses in unreality. In our heart of hearts, we know that it’s fantasy.
● The reward or punishment of endless life in Heaven or Hell seems not to fit the good deed or the crime for which it’s given (an act done in a brief moment and causing only, on a Heavenly scale, a small, momentary benefit or harm): an endless reward or punishment for a determinate good or bad act.
● How long did it take God to create time? (We’re told that it took God six days to create the universe . . . but does the universe not include time?)
[Later note (7-16-2022): No, it took Him six days to create the Earth. He created time a year before that . . . and it took Him six months. When he created the (rest of the) universe, and how long it took Him . . . I don’t know—I’m still doing research on that.]
● The goal of abstinence from drug abuse is not merely freedom from drug abuse (after all, the dead are drug-free), but rather to get to a point in your life where you can be and do all that drug abuse prevented you from being and doing.
● Values are—what we value is—subjective. Except that that truth (the subjectivity of values), as well as the impossibility of intrinsic value, are objective.
● 1-10-1999: Death is the great equalizer; it’s where every creature, no matter what it’s been or done in life, goes to spend eternity in the identical condition (oblivion, nothingness). Any reward or punishment for earthly deeds must come in life.
● In a significant sense, a life imprisonment sentence ends your life, the only difference from actual death being that you must live with that painful awareness.
[Later note (2021): That (life imprisonment, not my comment) sounds terrible. But is it really much different from most people’s experience in life?]
● 1-13-1999: Today was a red-letter day. After having avoided it for so long, I finally called my old psychotherapist, Fred Penrose, and I spoke to him. He denied that he had any of my writing or poetry, or that he could possibly locate any more of it, but I did get him to agree to accept a letter from me. I had for many years feared that he would have died by now, so, in a way, just to have reached him is a tremendous relief; though whether I’ll be able to get any more of my lost work back from him is uncertain, and, realistically, unlikely. But I must explore any possibility of it before I can allow myself to move on from it, so to speak. This letter I write to him may be the most important letter I’ll ever have written.
● 1-19-1999: What’s the relationship between knowledge and understanding?
● One possible way to get yourself to do what you know you should do but that you resist doing because it’s unpleasant or difficult is this: Force yourself to at least make a start, however brief, to take the initial steps in the task, without a definite commitment to finishing. For example, if you’re attempting to exercise by walking, try just putting on your walking shoes, and stepping outside. You may come right back in; or you may walk just a short way; but other times you’ll continue walking and end up walking the entire distance. However much you do, you’ll be that much better off for having done it. More important, though, you’ll perhaps break a membrane, a significant barrier to getting to work on the task.
● 1-21-1999: Drugs compensate for failure . . . but also guarantee it. You can’t accept a consolation prize early in the competition and at the same time pursue the grand prize. For to indulge in enjoyment of the consolation prize takes time and energy away from a full effort (which is usually required) to attain the grand prize. You always have a choice, and either decision carries a risk. If you elect to take the consolation prize early, you give up the grand prize that you might otherwise have won. And if you decide to stay in the competition for the grand prize but fail, you’ll have lost the enjoyment of the consolation prize you could have had in the interval, had you accepted it. But if you choose the consolation prize early on, your enjoyment of it will always be tempered by the knowledge that that enjoyment comes at the cost of a chance at the grand prize.
● Some of the most significant limits on us are the ones we put on ourselves.
● Some of your most difficult battles are with yourself.
● 1-24-1999: Death is bad or good according to whether your life is good or bad. Death is nothingness. Nothingness is worse than something good, but better than something bad. If your life is good, or happy, death is a detriment; but if your life is bad, or unhappy, death is a benefit. I am very unhappy. For me, now, death would be a relief. But I refrain from killing myself because I value my happiness less than I value my creative productivity, which is my life’s purpose. I live to produce creative work, not to be happy.
Of course, there are other reasons an unhappy person might refrain from killing himself, among which are the following (although they don’t necessarily apply in my case):
1. Hope for an improvement of the situation.
2. Concern for the welfare of others, whom your suicide would hurt.
● How does God stay sober? If God did have a drug problem, He could not use the Twelve-Steps program to quit, because He would be unable to turn his will and life over to the care of a Power greater than Himself . . . since there is no Power greater than Himself.
● How are the Twelve-Steps notions of personal powerlessness (Step One) and of turning one’s will and life over to God (Step Three) to be reconciled with the notion of taking personal responsibility, which the Steps also urge?
● Because we all share this planet’s increasingly fragile environment, and so what affects one affects all; the fate, the welfare, of all countries is interdependent. It makes no more sense to be unconcerned with actions by, or that affect, another nation than for one passenger in a small rowboat to be unconcerned that another passenger may shoot a hole in “his own” portion of the boat’s deck. The shooter may get wet a few seconds sooner, but everyone on board will go down.
● 2-2-1999: Why are Mafia members, when convicted of crimes, even of murder, it seems, never given the death penalty? (Is the government, perhaps, afraid of retaliation?)
● 2-4-1999: Not every problem has a solution. And not every “solution” has a problem.
● I look forward to death. For once, I’ll get a good night’s sleep. Though I won’t wake refreshed, neither will I feel tired. . . . Whereas now, at night I struggle with insomnia; and during the day, I’m dragged down by tiredness and fatigue. My life is miserable.
● It’s been several months since I quit drinking caffeinated beverages, such as coffee and tea, during which time I’ve drunk it on only one occasion (a State Bar class in which attendees had to pass a quiz afterward). I really miss it. Sometimes I feel as if caffeine is something I can’t live with and can’t live without . . . which I suppose, logically, means I can’t live.
● A milestone occurred today: I finally finished writing the letter to Fred Penrose about my lost writing, and mailed it to him. I had procrastinated writing it for over fifteen years.
● 2-14-1999: [Something I said to my then psychotherapist, Lynne Weinberg:] I feel as if, instead of getting better and better, as I had expected, the way I feel, and things in general, are getting worse and worse. And there seems to be no end in sight. But then sometimes I feel as if this is really to be expected. My life is terribly lacking. My problems are numerous and deep: the depersonalization / derealization, depression, insomnia, the urination problem. The great loss of my writing. I’m approaching fifty years of age, and I have very little to show for it. What have I made of my life? I have no life. I have practically nothing. All those years running my own law office, and the other business; I have no money, nothing to show for it, a total waste. My circumstances are terrible. I feel as if I’ve wasted so much time that I’m in a vast hole; and it’s going to take considerable time and energy to climb out. And frankly I’m wondering if I’ll have enough of either time or energy to do it. Moreover, given the strength of my procrastination, my complacency, in so many areas of my life for so many years, all of which was to avoid feeling certain feelings . . . And now that I’m finally confronting it all, facing what I was avoiding, overcoming, or beginning to overcome, the procrastination, it makes sense that all the negative feelings that I was thereby evading, are now coming to the surface and being felt. And the volume of pain is huge, a tidal wave. To expect to feel good now is to expect to feel good artificially, beyond what’s justified by the outward circumstances of my life; the expectation is premature and unrealistic. And it’s not in my best interest to feel good. The pain is supposed to be a guide for my life. The pain tells me that my life is in bad shape. And it provides a motivation to improve it. I’m not supposed to feel good until there’s reason to feel good.
And I must say that sometimes it feels to me as if your expectation that I should feel good, and your seeing my feeling bad as strange or pathological in itself, is to be condescending: it’s to fail to recognize and appreciate and acknowledge the true depths of my troubles, the true basis of my despair: in short, a failure to take me seriously.
● 2-16-1999: On Keeping an Open Mind I like to think of myself as open-minded. Yet I also like to consider myself strong-minded. How do you keep an open mind about, say, the proposition that twice two is four?
As to religious people (like those involved in the Twelve-Steps program) who request that non-religious people maintain an open mind toward “spiritual principles,” are such people (that is, the religious) open-minded to the possibility that God does not exist?
● 2-17-1999: Today I had an appointment with a nurse in the Urology department at Kaiser Hospital and she instructed me how to catheterize myself to get the urine out of my bladder, which I did.
● Belief is a fact, not a choice.
● 2-22-1999: Can one genuinely pray to God but disbelieve in God?
● If praying to and/or believing in God improves the quality of one’s life, or makes one’s life go better, why does it? Is it because a powerful, intervening God exists and praying to and/or believing in Him causes Him to intervene on the praying or believing person’s behalf, so that those who pray or believe get God’s help, but those who don’t, don’t? Or is it, instead, that the very act of praying or believing produces some psychological effect on the believer that somehow enhances his sense of well-being and/or his performance, perhaps such as soothing him or increasing his self-confidence?
● 2-26-1999: Last night I attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at which one of the members very forcefully and pointedly asserted that the use of any antidepressant medication, including ones like Prozac and Imiprimine, as a treatment for depression, is an abuse of mind- or mood-altering drugs, and constitutes the disease of addiction. Rubbish! To begin with, drug abuse is defined as taking a drug for a medically unnecessary purpose, to experience its psychological effects. But taking Prozac or Imiprimine for depression as directed by a physician is a medically necessary and proper use of the drug and therefore not drug abuse.
More significant still, certain drugs can be used properly, or abused. For example, opiates, while they can surely be abused; under certain circumstances they have a proper medical use, such as for severe pain. Consider a person who has never used an opiate but who does so briefly as prescribed by a physician to treat severe pain immediately following major surgery. If he discontinues the drug altogether within a few days, as soon as the pain becomes tolerable, and never uses the drug again, then, undoubtedly, to consider such person a drug addict, or even a drug abuser, would be absurd. But antidepressants like Prozac or Imiprimine are not even susceptible of abuse in the usual sense. Unlike opiates, Prozac and Imiprimine do not make one feel abnormally or unnaturally good; they don’t produce euphoria (to use the vernacular, they won’t “get you high”); they don’t make one feel good at all, per se, but rather merely allow one who’s unnaturally depressed, because of a chronic, specific, chemical imbalance (or whatever the physiological mechanism is), to feel and to function in a neutral, normal way. Such antidepressants are non-narcotic, and the average, normal person, who doesn’t have the specific pathology that the drug addresses, would experience no positive psychological effect at all from the drugs. It makes no more sense to characterize the use of Prozac or Imiprimine for depression as drug abuse than it would to so characterize the taking of aspirin for physical pain on the ground that it reduces the pain sufferer’s pain, and therefore makes him feel better. In sum, the position stated by the member at the meeting strikes me as profoundly ignorant, but one not unexpected from a member of Narcotics Anonymous.
By contrast, if fingers are to be pointed about cheating and hypocrisy in this regard, they should be pointed instead at the cigarette smokers. Cigarettes are not only a drug; they’re mood-altering and highly addictive; they’re a harmful, deadly substance with no legitimate medical use whatsoever. Furthermore, the smokers’ drug abuse affects the rest of us. They (the smokers) interrupt the meetings to go out and smoke, and they do so close enough to the open doors so that the smoke drifts back into the meeting, causing all of us against our will to consume their lethal second-hand chemicals. According to the How It Works section of Narcotics Anonymous literature: “Before we came to N.A., many of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs in order to recover.” Perhaps one day that wording will be expanded to include tobacco.
● 3-7-1999: I quit using drugs, not for God, but rather for me: out of self-interest: because drugs were hurting my life, and I wanted a better life . . . for myself.
● This evening, I read my short piece titled “Response to a New N.A. Attendee’s Stated Attempt to Believe in God” to a Narcotics Anonymous group. At the end of the meeting, the person (Steve) whose remarks at the previous meeting were the subject of my paper, asked me for a copy, which I found gratifying. Of course, I did give him a copy (I had come prepared with numerous copies, though no one knew that).
● Does God have conflicts of interest? What happens, for example, when two people whose interests are adverse to each other both pray for God’s help, in the battle against the other? Must God recuse himself, and decline to help either of them?
● 3-12-1999: I just now saw a picture of an American Indian wearing a headdress composed of eagles’ feathers, and I was struck with the appropriateness of the ornament, in that man flies, soars, with his mind, whose seat is in the brain, in the head . . ..
● Sometimes it seems that my life is a continuing calamity: one misfortune ends just to be replaced by another.
● It is true that money isn’t everything, and many rich people are miserable; but it’s better to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable (a rich person has one less thing to be miserable about).
[Later note (2021): Besides, happiness is not the sole desideratum in life. There’s also, for example, actualization of one’s creative potential, with which money is very helpful indeed.]
● Lately there has been public outcry over police shootings of unarmed civilians, wherein numerous policemen have fired numerous gunshots into the victim. One theory advanced to defend the police in these cases is that, hearing shots, they fired instinctively, perhaps assuming that one of the shots had come from the victim, aimed at them. However valid this theory may be—and that’s very dubious—it totally fails to deal with one critical element: the first shot fired (by the police). The theory at best excuses, or at least explains, subsequent shots; but it can’t explain the first shot. If the defense is valid, then the policeman who fired the first shot should be isolated, treated separately, and perhaps assigned culpability.
● 3-18-1999: Tonight, I was prevented at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting from reading my Rebuttal regarding antidepressant medication. Par for the course: narrow-minded, intolerant people.
● The holy cow and the papal bull; they got together but they didn’t know what to do.
● Do you have to believe in or pray to God in order to get God’s help? If so, why? Does God find those who believe in or pray to Him more deserving of His help than those who don’t? If so, why? What is God’s policy about this?
● 3-25-1999: Once you make the leap as to the existence of God, you then have the additional challenge of determining God’s characteristics or qualities. That is, just because a God exists does not automatically mean that He’s good and loving. God could, of course, just as easily be evil, or neutral, or a mixture of good and evil (like us). God could have a similar relationship with us as I might have with insects. I might intervene in their lives, and sometimes I do; sometimes I eliminate them as inconvenient pests; occasionally (rarely) I decide to be merciful and spare, or even rescue, one. God may simply think human beings are not very important. Do we cast good and evil in terms of how our actions affect cockroaches or mice?
[Later note (9-23-2023): . . . And of course God’s superiority to us is even greater than our superiority to insects.]
● To say that it’s God’s will that, for example, we love one another and treat one another kindly . . . why does it need to be God’s will?—is it not sufficient that it be our will? Why is it inadequate to say, simply, “We think it would be a good thing for people to love one another and treat one another kindly, and we’re going to try to do that.”? Why do we need to make it more complicated than that?
People want to believe in God to avoid growing up and taking responsibility for their actions and for the world, or having to admit that they can’t control their world. It comforts them to think that an entity that’s in many essential ways like them, who’s conscious and who shares their same human values (such as love and justice) and who’s very powerful, is ultimately directing or influencing the universe for, or at least with reference to, their benefit. The alternative is rather bleak, cosmologically: the notion that we’re in a hostile or at least indifferent (which, given harsh natural conditions, may amount to a hostile) world. And we’re afraid to accept ultimate moral and practical responsibility. The existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and humanity-interested God allows us to somehow pass the buck, to avoid the awareness that we’re the top of the chain; that there’s nothing beyond us; that we’re it.
● Some Narcotics Anonymous members attempt to avoid the religious implication of Twelve-Steps by interpreting “God” as “spiritual laws,” with which one must “align oneself.” But this interpretation doesn’t fit the intent of the Steps, which requires a God who’s conscious, has a will, and who hears people’s prayers (see especially Step Eleven: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out”).
● For seven days prior to my next urology appointment, I’m supposed to measure the volume of urine that I void through catheterization, for which purpose the doctor gave me a special measuring vessel to empty the urine into. . . . Now I have a pot to piss in.
● On 18 March 1999, I attempted to read my “Rebuttal on Antidepressant Medication” to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting group, but was prevented from doing so. The following week I tried to distribute printed copies of the “Rebuttal” to members of the group but was thwarted in that effort as well. For many days I felt defeated and humiliated, and was in considerable pain. But later it occurred to me that these were risks that I was aware of, and that you should not take an action unless you’re prepared for the known risks to materialize. And if you take the action, and those risks do materialize, it makes little sense to complain about it. Risk is a cost of success; and if you take risks, sometimes you’re going to lose.
● The Republican and Democratic parties are not opposites in the sense that they’re going in different (let alone, opposite) directions; rather, the Democrats are merely the lesser of the two evils—they’re going in the same (bad) direction as the Republicans, just not quite as fast.
[Later note (9-23-2023): Yes, but to turn around, you must first slow down . . ..]
● I do not necessarily believe in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. I believe in the greatest happiness per capita.
● Why, according to people in Narcotics Anonymous, are some things just not meant to be, whereas other things we’re scolded for not bringing about ourselves? For example, if we relapse and use drugs, why do they not say in that case that sobriety was simply not meant to be? Perhaps, in my own situation, adopting Twelve-Steps was simply not meant to be. . . . Perhaps part of the distinction lies in what’s within our control versus what’s not. For instance, not using drugs is perfectly within my control, whereas having a job, or having a particular person as a lover, may not be within my control. And to address the specific question I raised, I would argue that my adopting Twelve-Steps is in the latter category (not in my control), for belief is a fact, not a choice; and if, as the intellectually honest person that I am, I truly don’t believe in Twelve-Steps (which I don’t), I can’t voluntarily change that. And they shouldn’t want me to . . . though apparently they do.
● People commonly talk about wishing to be part of, or to have their efforts advance, a larger purpose. My work “Ethics” can be described as showing that there is no larger purpose beyond what happens to motivate each individual. Perhaps, as with religion, a byproduct of belief in intrinsic value was that it allowed people to conceive of their actions as directed toward accomplishing a greater purpose.
● People who believe in and are involved in Twelve-Steps can often be heard saying things like, “Through God I came to respect myself and others.” Now, why does this have to be done through God? Why is it not just as valid simply to say, “I came to respect myself and others.”? Which surely has the advantage of being simpler. Twelve-Steps adherents, and the religious generally, seem to have a penchant for somehow routing everything through God, for involving God in everything. But this complicates the topic thus treated. It makes the process circuitous rather than direct. Instead of saying simply, “This”; they say, “Through, or because of, God, this.” Perhaps one reason they do it is that they’re embarrassed about admitting their involvement in whatever subject they’re discussing, and to put God into the equation somehow insulates them from it. They may be embarrassed to talk about their love for another person, so they end up instead talking about how God has brought this feeling of love into their lives, diluting the message about their love by adding a second message (concerning God’s existence and His role) into the statement. In fact, this method does more than merely dilute the underlying subject by adding a second subject; it subordinates the original subject (about their love, for example) to the added subject, the one about God and His role, which becomes the dominant, primary theme, and the statement becomes less about their loving feelings toward another person, and more a peon to God and His Love. In this way, a religious framework gives people cover for feeling and talking about experiences and issues they would otherwise find more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to handle. In a certain sense, the religious context ritualizes, reduces, even sometimes trivializes, the other subjects involved.
● 4-8-1999: God’s will for man is that each of us should live for a little while and then die.
● Does God continue to exist after I die? If so, why does He get to continue but I don’t? Why should He live forever when I am no more?
● 4-11-1999: One of the U.S. government’s proposed justifications for its involvement in the war in Yugoslavia has been “to defuse a powder keg.” But how do you defuse a powder keg by dropping fire into it?
● 4-14-1999: I want to kill myself. Life is not working for me.
● Regarding NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, to talk about whether a given action was justified, or appropriate, to achieve a particular purpose is nonsensical if the action in question was really done for some other purpose.
Moreover, given the complex sociopolitical situation that existed in Yugoslavia, that the imposition of bombing would actually produce a beneficial, not a counterproductive, effect (let alone be the best possible solution for the professed purpose) when the action is taken for ulterior motives and not for the announced purpose, seems very unlikely.
And to argue about whether the current campaign should continue in order to achieve its ostensible purpose, when it’s being carried out for quite different ones, seems likewise to lack sense, because it’s to accept the stated purpose as the real one.
● 4-16-99: My urological/sleep situation is intolerable. My sleep at night is a series of short naps between urinations.
● The tornado is the Tyrannosaurus Rex of weather, the most awesome, dramatic, and exciting species.
● 4-18-1999: I was prepared to participate in a trial of mutual clients in a personal injury case with my attorney acquaintance Bob Rentzer. My participation was optional, and I was doing it without financial compensation, just for the education. It turns out, however, that the trial will probably last an entire week, and I’ve decided to bow out because I am (or more accurately my father, Jerry Eisner, who’s been supporting me, is) about to run out of money and so I critically need to find a (paying) job very, very soon. You might say I’ve collided with reality.
● 4-20-1999: Today there was a horrendous school-shooting in Colorado, and I heard that President Clinton’s response was to advise people to pray. To pray to God . . . to do what?! Where was God before it happened?! What—not enough people prayed to God asking Him to prevent it, so He let it happen? So now we’re to pray to Him and say, “Dear God, I know You didn’t prevent this tragedy, because we were remiss in our duty to pray to You sufficiently, and give You your due obeisance; but we’re going to make up for it now—more of us will pray to You, and much harder; so please prevent the next one.”
● Were my decision whether to continue living based on my enjoyment of life, my happiness, I would kill myself (indeed, I would have done so long ago); for I have long suffered; and I lack sufficient hope of an improvement, to change my outlook in this regard. I go on living, rather, for the sake of my work, to maximize the body of work I leave to posterity. But these two values in my life are not totally distinct, or divorced, from each other. Their interplay is multifarious, and includes the following:
I value my happiness (well, I don’t value it—I desire it). I’m often at least practically motivated by my comfort and pleasure, even when it doesn’t enhance my productivity, perhaps even at times when it conflicts with it. But I also know that my comfort may enhance my productivity. And feeling satisfied with my productivity would almost surely make me happier. And dissatisfaction with my productivity will make me even more miserable; indeed, I’ve often described the loss of my writing as the central injury of my life, and it’s what I focus on most when I contemplate my misery.
● I’m working on an alternative image to the ubiquitous half-full/half-empty glass, consisting of a balance, in which one side represents all the bad in one’s life; the other side, the good. Whether a person is happy or unhappy, or feels life is or is not worth living, depends on (his estimation of) which side of the scales is heavier, whether (he feels that) the good somehow outweighs the bad.
● I’ll try to get out of the habit of using such terms as “our” or “we” when referring to the interests, motivations, or actions of the United States, for in general it’s not my interests, or those of the average citizen, that drive this country’s policies, but rather those of big corporations. The American ship of state has been hijacked by big corporations; and it’s the mission of the majority of us on board to wrest back control.
● Tuesday, 5-12-1999: Sometimes I have the feeling that, in my life, the bad never ends and the good never starts.
● The proverbial journey versus destination corresponds to my dichotomy of experience versus accomplishment. When we say, of life, that it’s the journey rather than the destination that matters, this makes sense in that the ultimate destination of life is death (if we truly valued the destination and not the journey, we’d kill ourselves, to reach it more quickly). Short of death, there’s no real destination, no final stopping point. Life is a brief journey from birth to death. But for persons who live for accomplishment (like me, my desired accomplishment being the maximizing of my body of creative work), life is indeed more like a destination than a journey. But it’s a sort of hybrid destination: there’s no place of definite arrival; the object is to keep traveling, and the farther you’ve gone by the end, the better.
● Death is better than unhappiness, and not as good as happiness. Death is the absence of experience. Unhappiness is bad experience; happiness is good experience. Nil is greater than a negative quantum, less than a positive one.
● A volcanic eruption is preceded by the shaking of earth; and a bowel movement is preceded by the passing of wind.
● Saturday, 5-15-1999: To abuse drugs is to take the low road of life.
● When I go for a drive, it typically consists of a perpetual search for the next place where I can stop to urinate.
● 5-29-1999: God should be indicted for crimes against humanity, for sadistically torturing his little creatures.
● Who’s with whom, and at what ages, in Heaven? . . . People often exclaim that they wish, after they die, to eventually be reunited with their family members in Heaven, a sentiment especially common when another family member dies. That wish is problematic. Let’s say that you’d like to be with your family as an adult in your prime, and to be with your spouse and your young child. But let’s say everyone has the same preference: to be in Heaven as an adult in his prime, with his spouse and young child. For it all to work, there would have to be two of every person: the adult you, to be with your young child, and the child you, to be with your parents when they’re adults in their prime. Of course, it would all work if one member of the pair is an imaginary person. Perhaps Heaven is a place where each person has his own favorite fantasy. Or, if, in Heaven, we’re embodied, pity the young child, deprived of the opportunity to grow up, be in his prime, and perhaps accomplish great things. Or if we do age there, do we get old and die, and then go to a second Heaven (or perhaps, next time, to Hell)?
● The number one is represented by a single numeral, but by three letters. Just four is composed of the same number of letters as the number it represents . . . but, unlike one, its number of digits (one) mismatches it.
● Religious people sometimes describe death as one’s “reward”; “He went to his reward” . . . By which they of course mean Heaven, a place of endless joy. But the description is poignantly ironic in that, even if you don’t believe in Heaven, or any afterlife, death, for most people, is a reward simply because, even considered as a state of nothingness, oblivion, it represents peace and an end of their suffering, and so is a significant improvement over their experience in life.
● It seems to me that one reason religious people might wish to believe in Heaven is that the alternative opens the way for resentment of God. If we live briefly, and then nothing, this means that all our prayer and request for God’s intervention on our behalf, all our fussing about God’s meaning and significance for us, takes place in a situation where God lives eternally, and each new generation has the same meditations about God, and yet they die and cease to play an active, relevant role in human interaction with God—they’re gone forever, and are ultimately forgotten. So what’s the point of it all? . . . But all that anguish is instantly dispelled by the supposition that—if we sufficiently follow the religion in question—we live forever: in joy, and with God.
● 6-1-1999: A journal entry from my early twenties remembered: How can I feel so bad about myself as I sometimes think I do and yet love writing, for in writing I’m expressing myself? . . ..
● A thought about Zeno’s paradox, that an arrow can never reach its target, because the distance it must travel can be divided into an infinite number of sub-distances (half, then half of that, then half of that), so it must travel an infinite number of finite distances. The flaw in, or solution to, the paradox, is this: the procedure implies, or suggests, that the distance thus described is infinite (“an infinite number of finite distances”). But the distance is already stipulated to be finite. And we know from our everyday experience that finite distances are traversable, because we traverse them. Perhaps addressing the paradox more directly, the number of sub-distances—infinitely many—is exactly balanced by their smallness—approaching infinitesimal . . . the product of an infinitesimal and an infinite sum is finite (infinitesimal times infinite is finite) . . ..
● 6-11-1999: A note on intuition versus analysis. Our minds are not merely computers, though they apparently do have certain computing functions, but also organs of sense. And when we perform a calculation, or think to any conclusion, we use our intuition in addition to our analytical faculty, in that, ultimately, we must sense—intuit—that our analysis, our logic, is sound.
● 6-13-1999: Is the lack of energy I feel actually just a lack of motivation? In other words, if I were suddenly struck with a desire to do something, I might not be inhibited in fulfilling the desire by a lack of energy (I’d have sufficient energy to do it).
[Later note (2021): I wonder if that isn’t begging the question: a desire to do something may be essentially the same as energy. . . .]
● Bill Clinton’s legacy: he’s the Bombing President . . ..
● Wednesday, 6-16-1999: Today I signed the contract to have Westchester Literary Agency represent me for publication of my Essays on Drug Abuse (and sent the manuscript and a check for fees and costs to the agency). A major milestone.
[Later note (2021): Well, it would have been a major milestone if the work had been published; it wasn’t.]
● 6-20-1999: Having a hearing problem can be inconvenient. Just now I was listening to the radio and heard an announcement to the effect that a certain Cuban “penis” would be performing at a particular place. And I thought, “That’s a rather strange way to refer to someone.” But then, in context, I realized that they had actually said, Cuban pianist . . ..
● 6-20-1999, 1:40 p.m.: I’ve just drunk a cup of tea; I’m listening to a Mozart piano concerto; and I’m writing a letter that’s turning out well. I’m exuberant—positively high!
I’ve gone without using caffeine for over half a year, in part to improve my energy level. But the experiment has been an utter failure, and I very much miss coffee and tea. I’ve decided to resume using caffeine, in moderation.
● To incessantly rehearse the argument for sobriety is to focus on wearing shoes instead of going barefoot, rather than on how fast and far you walk.
● 6-24-1999: It’s a disservice to a hero to call him fearless, since, if he’s fearless, he’s not brave, because bravery involves conquering or overcoming one’s fear, acting despite fear.
● 6-29-1999: The purpose of each season is to get you so tired of it by the end that you look forward to and welcome the start of the next one.
[Later note (9-23-2023): That might apply to Summer and Winter, but not to Spring or Fall. . . . If I don’t rewrite that, someone else might. So . . . The purpose of each season (at least Summer and Winter) is to get you so tired of it by the end that you look forward to and welcome the start of the next one.]
● Eisner’s fourth(?) law of literature: No one appreciates a work of literature as much as its author does. A corollary: However much praise is given to a literary work, it’s not as much as its author thinks it deserves.
● 6-30-1999: I just returned from getting my sideburns trimmed, and I noticed that they’re very uneven, distinctly different in length. My first impulse was to go back and have them made even; but then it occurred to me that I preferred the longer one . . . so I just let them be.
● The ultimate test of whether a given instance of (non medically-necessary or indicated) drug use is abuse is whether it has a detrimental effect on the user or his life. If it does, it’s abuse; otherwise, it’s not.
● 7-22-1999: Immediately after drinking coffee or tea, I feel as if I’m walking on level ground, or even slightly downward, instead of laboring uphill. Instead of walking against the wind, the wind is at my back . . ..
● Sometimes physiologically, but always psychologically, the more often you perform a pleasurable action, the less effect it has each time. A recent example for me is drinking coffee or tea. It stimulates me and is the high point of my day . . . pun intended. I limit myself to two cups a day, and restrain my natural tendency to increase the amount or the frequency, to avoid the negative effects of drinking more, and to keep the effectiveness. I know that the more often I use it, the less effect it will have each time.
● I heard one artist, a photographer, assert that the main value of a work of art is the artist’s joy in creating it. My reply is that she should speak for herself. Her statement is true if and only if the work is of little value to an audience. But the more valuable it is to others, the more untrue that statement. For example, surely the pleasure that Mozart’s music has given billions of music lovers since it was created is far greater (and worth more) than the pleasure Mozart experienced in producing it.
● I’ve been revising and polishing my essay “An Argument for Drug Decriminalization” for days on end; and sometimes I get the feeling I’ll never finish; and I feel that I’m merely counterproductively, unhealthily, yielding to a neurotic, perverse perfectionism. But at other times I feel that this essay is a masterpiece, and that to polish it to the highest degree I’m capable of is worth the time and effort (every time I change it, I improve it). And then it occurs to me (whereupon I finally believe I’m doing the right thing) that great accomplishments are often the result of extreme efforts.
● 8-1-1999: What is this notion of praying for other people? As if God doesn’t know the right thing to do on its own merits, but needs people to urge him to do something in order to act. It’s to assume that God operates like a politician, and is guided by the polls. Well, this man may be worth saving; but only seven people prayed to me to ask me to save him. That’s not enough. Seven hundred . . . maybe. Buddy, I’m afraid you’re gonna die! Like the gladiator in the Roman Coliseum, who, in determining whether to kill or spare his wounded opponent, looks to the crowd for a thumbs up or a thumbs down. . . . God—what a swell guy!
● The more I write, the more I get the impression that “final draft” is merely a wishful characterization of “latest draft,” which truly becomes final only when the author dies . . . or at least till editors get hold of it.
● 8-17-1999: Today at the legal clinic (Domestic Violence Clinic), while waiting for the printer, or for the computer, to print a document, which is exasperatingly slow, the computer monitor showed a message, “Printing, please wait.” I commented that it should read instead, “Waiting, please print.”
● For a prisoner serving life in prison without the possibility of parole; the shorter his life, the shorter his prison sentence . . ..
● 8-29-1999: Sometimes a psychotherapist will ask his patient what the patient is feeling at a given moment. But the question is based on a false assumption: namely, that a person is a passive observer of his experience. It’s a little like asking someone to describe what he sees visually, when he’s looking at a landscape in front of him. He may know that if he looks to the east he’ll see a city, and if he looks to the west he’ll see mountains. Whether he looks to the east or to the west to describe what he sees depends in part on whether he wants to see and report seeing a city, or mountains . . . or, even if he’s looking straight ahead, he can select which elements he focuses on and describes. What we experience is not passive or static, but instead dynamic: to some extent, as might happen in a lucid dream, we create it as we go, we control and direct it.
As to how I am feeling at this moment, I feel as if I may be at some sort of psychological or existential crossroads, almost as if recent experiences, or whatever combination of elements, perhaps culminating in the 8-25-1999 presentation to my psychotherapist, Lynne Weinberg, has allowed me to break free of something that has bound me; that I was tethered to a tree, but now the rope is cut and I’m free to walk away; that the airplane that was driving down the runway has dropped the weight that kept it on the ground, and is now able to become airborne . . . if I so choose, or will. But to do so, I must, nonetheless, walk, rev the engine, accelerate the aircraft, with all my might. This may be a significant, and critical, opportunity for growth.
[Later note (2020): When I reread this Eisner’s Journal, I wondered why I had omitted the referenced 8-25-1999 presentation. I thought perhaps it should be included if it was indeed momentous. So I went back to my Diary, but the only entry for that date was: “8-25-99: The big presentation today to Lynne Weinberg, Ph.D., my psychotherapist.” I looked for it (whatever it might have been—I don’t remember) but could find nothing. Perhaps it seemed so important at the time that I assumed I’d always remember it, without making a note about it. As they say, Oh well.]
● My piece titled “Ethics” is my magnum opus, my great contribution to the world (if anything I’ve written could be so described). If I wanted a perspective that minimized the loss of my writing that has oppressed my soul for so long, I could analogize my “Ethics” to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Einstein wrote numerous papers, but it’s his Relativity Theory for which he’ll be remembered. Compared to it, his other work is almost insignificant. Likewise, my “Ethics” towers so far above anything else I’ve ever done that, in a way, it’s a little strange that I feel the loss of some of the other work as keenly as I do, in the face of the survival of my “Ethics.”
Sometimes I wonder if the loss of the writing is not just an excuse to feel bad, or traumatized. Of course, only I could propose this possibility. If it came from anyone else, I’d be indignant and outraged.
● 9-4-1999: Talking with my father the other day, he remarked that he thought the United States government is sincere about its motives in the drug war, that it really is attempting to fight drug abuse. As evidence of which, he cited the government’s efforts to eradicate drug crops in foreign countries, such as the coca crops in Latin American countries like Colombia. But I told him that I thought such drug eradication efforts were a mere pretext for the provision of military resources to prop up United States-friendly governments against popular rebellion. And, I said, it’s significant that the United States always provides that aid to the same old pro-American dictators that it has always installed and kept in power. You never see this country giving anti-drug aid money to people’s or progressive groups . . ..
● In many animals, the males compete for females by displays. For example, the male weaver bird that builds the most impressive nest will win the female, and other bird males try to win the females with spectacular flying displays. Could it be that the human male is creative in such activities as painting and music-writing . . . to impress and attract women?
● 9-13-1999: My father and I are in the process of moving. We must be out of this condominium by 12-15-1999. The moving process is something I’ve put off for a long time. But I’ve started, and have been going through my possessions, trying to organize them to get ready to move. I’m throwing away many things. I’m also cleaning out a storage locker where I keep old case files, going through the older files, keeping a few selected papers as memorabilia and discarding the rest. In the process, I’ve come to see the value of things as memorabilia that are otherwise worthless. Memorabilia helps keep us connected with the rest of our lives. It reminds us of where we’ve been, what we’ve done, experienced. In going through some of these files, on 9-10-1999, which files I was intensely involved with 8 to 14 years ago, sweet feelings of nostalgia for that time in my life washed over me like a drug.
● Lately I’m bothered by the realization that there are so few photographs of me at various ages, not so much for my own sake, but for posterity. Yet, sometimes I have doubts that I’ll ever be remembered by the world at all, let alone as a great writer, let alone as . . . Am I just deluded, flattering myself?
● Much of what I write (for example, much of the material in this Diary) I don’t take the time to polish; I write it just to make a rough note of the basic content.
[Later note (10-22-2023): Whether or not that was true of my Diary; when the material gets here to my Journal, I do polish it.]
● Wednesday, 9-15-1999: Sometimes I get the feeling that there’s a more or less fixed zone of recency in my life as to which nostalgia operates. At any given time, I may be nostalgic about my life five to fifteen years ago (when I was younger, it was a shorter span). It’s almost as if what’s older than that in your life becomes ancient history, dead; but what’s more recent is late enough so that you could almost reach back and touch it, late enough to be still alive. I pull this range of time behind me as I go through life. Which means, surely, that you’ll eventually come to feel nostalgic about this time, too, and wish you could be back here. (As the song says, “These are the good old days.”) And yet, as thoroughly as we may realize this intellectually, we still somehow cannot manage to get that awareness to fully come round and register emotionally, to grab hold of this present time and have that sweet feeling dwell where we are right now. Perhaps we fall into the trap of thinking that tomorrow will be better for us than today, so we live for tomorrow, and never fully appreciate where we are at this moment. For, in a way, that might be to give up hope, to have to think that this may be as good as it’s going to get for us, that this is all there is, that this is it. So, at any given time, we simultaneously dwell in the future, where we imagine our life will be much better in some significant way; and we look back at the past with nostalgia. But perhaps that bittersweet nostalgic feeling we have about the past is the feeling of regret that we didn’t fully appreciate that time when it was the present, that we didn’t fully live there . . . didn’t fully live. Perhaps it’s a little like the feeling of missed opportunity. We feel attracted to another person, who appears to be attracted to us as well, but we decide not to ask her for a date, thinking that either an opportunity will come along to date an even more attractive or suitable person, or that an even more opportune instant will arise to ask this person for a date. But it never does. And years later we come to regret that we passed up a perfect opportunity.
● Sometimes I think of something to write, but then think better of it because there’s an imperfection in the thought or in its proposed expression; but then I also think that it’s better to write it down than to write nothing at all, for, as imperfect as it may be, they’re interesting words to read. And I can always rework it later. (Whereas, if I don’t write it down now; in most cases, I’ll have nothing: it’s gone forever.)
● 9-20-1999: Today was a day of such rare clarity and beauty that it made me feel nostalgic, vaguely reminding me of other similar days long, long ago.
● I divide the year, according to my own personal perspective, into two main seasons or parts: the dark and the light. The dark part consists of Fall and Winter; the light, of Spring and Summer. I prefer the milder season in each half; that is, I like Spring better than Summer, and Fall better than Winter. In fact, though I prefer the light half of the year to the dark half, generally; in some ways, I prefer Fall to Summer (I dislike the heat and smog of Summer . . . though I dislike the end of daylight-saving time in Fall, which brings darkness an hour earlier each day). As implied, my favorite season is Spring; my next favorite is Fall, then Summer. Winter is the only season I dislike, because the days are cold, gloomy, and short (although, since they’re cold and gloomy, perhaps it’s good that they’re short). All during Winter, I long for the arrival of Spring. By the end of Summer, I come to long for, or at least pleasantly anticipate, the coming of Fall, and I’m filled with a bittersweet, longing, nostalgic feeling (my vocabulary fails me here). I also have a sense of rejuvenation, reinvigoration, of optimism, of looking forward, of new possibilities. Perhaps it reminds me of returning to school in the Fall, as I did in my youth.
● Casually talking about the weather is supposed to epitomize trivial conversation. But weather is very important to me; it has a great effect on my mood. I don’t know what it is about the weather that effects one’s mood. Some have proposed that it’s a chemical effect from sunlight, but I think, rather, it’s simply the way it looks . . . not physiological but psychological—subjective, and ultimately mysterious.
● Metaphysics must be consistent with physics. Or, we might say, truth must be consistent with fact. A view about what’s possible and necessary must be consistent with what actually is. For example, if your philosophy implies that a given fact or phenomenon is impossible, and yet science proves that it actually exists, then your philosophy is wrong.
● 9-26-1999: Haiku (tanka) remembered:
Strange how at Christmas,
Man’s time to celebrate God’s
Gifts to the world, man
Brings out, stares at his own vain
Little lights, and not the stars.
● 10-3-1999: It’s inaccurate to say that women can produce children, but men cannot, for a woman can’t do it without a man. It’s more accurate, therefore, to say that people can produce children, and that men and women have different roles in the process.
● 10-8-1999: There’s no inherent or overall purpose to life or human life. Rather, each person has his own individual, subjective purpose, if he has one at all. My purpose is to become as great a writer as I can and to maximize my body of work. Another person’s purpose may be to enjoy life, to experience as much pleasure as possible. Another’s purpose, such as Hitler, may be to rid the world of Jews. Someone else may live just because it seems the thing to do, preferable to death, or merely out of instinct, with no purpose or thought at all.
● 10-20-1999: It makes exactly as much sense to judge a person by the color of his skin, or by his looks in general, as it does to judge a book by its cover.
● 10-24-1999: There’s a significant difference between the Democratic and Republican parties: The Republicans are driving the country toward the cliff’s edge at 60 miles an hour; the Democrats are doing it at only 50 miles an hour.
● 11-5-1999: Question: What is a man’s purpose in life? Answer: To get old and die.
● When we say we have faith, what do we mean we have faith in? Faith that we’ll be happy someday? How happy, for how long? Or do we mean that we have faith in God? Faith merely that God exists? Faith in what about God? Faith that God can and will do something?—that He’ll do what?
● Faith, in the phrase Leap of faith . . . means simply belief unsupported by evidence, or irrational belief.
[Later note (2020): “Belief unsupported by evidence” is ambiguous. It could mean against the evidence, or merely without evidence in its favor (which is consistent with there being no evidence for or against it). In the latter case, the belief would not be irrational, but merely nonrational.]
● Word-cartoon: A picture of a person going over the edge of a cliff . . . and the caption or title is Leap of Faith . . ..
● 11-7-1999: Here’s a story about an atheist, and an acquaintance of his, a theist who wants to convert his friend to religion. The theist steals something from the atheist that’s of great value to him (the atheist); five years later, after the atheist goes through tremendous anguish over the loss, the central injury of his life, the theist arranges to have the atheist find the lost item after the atheist prays, or adopts Twelve-Steps, for it. The atheist is tremendously relieved and comes to believe in God. Grateful for the miracle that’s taken place, and for God’s kindness, he declares to his acquaintance, “Yes, there is a God; and God is good!”
Another scenario in another country: As a result of a fire in his home, a man loses his fortune and is heartbroken over it. He prays to God to restore his fortune. Feeling bad over the man’s unhappiness, a friend of his robs ten men of lesser wealth, leaving them all destitute, one being so miserable over the loss that he kills himself. As a result of the robberies, the friend amasses an amount of money equal to the fortune his friend lost, and he presents it to him, telling him that he just happened to find it buried in the woods. The friend who’d lost his fortune, rejoices, thanking God for His beneficence in answering his prayers.
● 11-8-1999: The maxim “God works in mysterious ways” implicitly acknowledges that, if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, God’s actions, as manifested in the world as it is, seem not to make sense; which in turn is to say that the traditional concept of God seems not to make sense. With which conclusion I agree.
[Later note (2021): . . . I suppose I should agree with it—it’s my conclusion.]
● 11-11-1999: I am morbidly, temperamentally negative. It’s not only if the glass is half full that I’ll dwell on what’s missing; but, further, if the glass were 90 percent full, I’d focus on the ten percent that’s missing. If the glass were completely full, I’d think, “Well, it’s full; but it would be better to have a bucketful . . ..
● On the relationship between hard work and success: Take a hundred little scraps of paper, and run a cigarette lighter, without the flame, under each one in turn. Then cast them onto a tray. None will catch fire. Take another hundred similar scraps of paper, pass the lighter, this time with a flame, under each one in turn briefly, and cast them onto another tray. Perhaps ten of those papers, out of the hundred, will catch fire. The lesson: In any event, you have to do a minimum of work in life just to survive; you have to go through the motions of getting out of bed in the morning, driving to your place of employment, etc. In other words, you have to move the lighter under the paper. But, while you’re going through those motions, which takes work, you might as well put that little extra effort into it, and not only work, but work hard, really try . . . so as to emit a flame while you work, and thus, in addition to just surviving, give yourself an opportunity (though by no means a guarantee) to genuinely succeed.
● 11-14-1999: People often cite as the sine qua non of their value as human beings their helpfulness to others. But helping others can’t be the ultimate essence of value; for such notion involves an infinite regress, whereby John is valuable because he helped Joseph; Joseph is valuable because he helped Steven; and Steven is valuable because he helped Richard, and so on. For the helping of another person to be worthwhile, the person helped—his value—must consist in some state inhering in his own life, not merely in his being helpful to someone else in turn. And it seems to me that the most natural candidate for that valuable state is pleasure, or happiness. Other proposed desiderata lead to further questions about their purpose or value. For example, if you say that money or material wealth is what’s important, the question immediately arises why money is valuable—and, specifically, why wealth is important if it doesn’t make its possessor happy. The contention will be made that the happy but poor man is better off than the rich but unhappy one, or that a world with happy people but no money is better than one with money but no people. Pleasure or happiness is the only quality or condition that one cannot argue is important only as a means to something else. Therefore, happiness seems the best candidate for that which is intrinsically valuable . . . if anything is. Returning to the opening thought, people helping other people in a series is problematic even if the series is not endless—even if the series ends with someone having been helped to have a happy life. Say the series consists of ten people, and the tenth one has a happy life. For the sake of that tenth person’s happy life, nine other people have sacrificed theirs, as it were. In effect, ten lives have been spent to get one person’s happy life. Averaged out, that’s one-tenth of a happy life apiece. . . . On the other hand, the great majority of people, if not all, are concerned mainly with their own happiness. And if helping people is your passion, you probably can’t change that. Not following it would likely make your life seem less meaningful, and make you less happy. And getting genuine help from others can significantly improve your life.
● A time-travel paradox/infinite regress problem: a person foresees the future and has to plan ahead to evade capture . . .? (. . . I made this cryptic note several years ago, but left it unfinished, waiting to get around to fully developing/articulating the thought. But I waited too long, and now I don’t recall what the thought was, and am unable to reconstruct it. . . . another casualty of procrastination. . . .)
● 11-29-1999: An attitude or assumption that may predispose us to drug abuse is that we should feel good all the time. To encourage drug abuse abstinence, it’s useful to realize that our mood naturally fluctuates; you probably won’t feel good all the time. And there’s a limit to the feasibility and effectiveness of trying to counteract the natural low points by artificial, chemical means.