2001

● 1-2-2001:   Where the Notion that Curiosity Killed the Cat Came From Once, in a small town, there was a cat named Curiosity. Its owner got into some trouble over his pet because it had killed several very expensive birds kept by one of his neighbors. And it was well known in the town that the Department of Animal Regulation had told Curiosity’s owner that if it killed another bird, the cat would be confiscated. One day the cat did kill another of the neighbor’s birds, and the Animal Regulation Department, as promised, seized the cat. The town newspaper decided to publish a story about it; and the editor, just before he left work for the day, gave his new assistant the story’s headline as he wanted it to appear, which was CURIOSITY CAT KILLS. But the assistant, being dyslexic (and not very careful), accidentally transposed two of the words, and the headline ran, CURIOSITY KILLS CAT.

● In Support of Abolishing the Death Tax There has recently been considerable public debate over the “Death Tax”; and George W. Bush and the Republicans have made its abolition a point in the 2000 presidential campaign.

There are not many ideas expressed by George Bush and his party on which I agree with them, but this is one. It seems to me that the death tax is both unfair and unworkable. It’s unfair because, very simply, the dead have enough trouble without imposing on them the added burden of being taxed. And it’s unworkable because, however vigorously we may attempt to collect it, dead people aren’t going to pay it.

I think it’s important to acknowledge when the Republicans are right (or, correct). And, frankly, that George Bush is taking a strong, common-sense stand on this issue makes me feel that he may be more intelligent than a lot of people are giving him credit for.

● 1-9-2001:   It’s said that Christ died to save all of us from sin and give us everlasting life, and that all we need to do to achieve salvation and eternal life is to accept Christ. But what of those billions of people who were born and died before Christ lived? This beneficence of salvation was not available to them. Why not? Why did God not see fit to so benefit them, as well as those of us who’ve come later?

[Later note (2021): The problem of salvation and the afterlife could be solved much more simply—by God merely changing the rules of the game: He could, for example, have those who’ve behaved well go to Heaven, and those who’ve behaved badly go to a limbo, where they’d be able to show remorse and make up for their bad deeds, and then go to Heaven. But, of course, that would never be posited, because it wouldn’t affect people’s behavior, which is the point.]

● At every time in my life, I’ve complained that I was old, and yet there would come a (later) time when I looked back on it and thought I was young then and regretted that I hadn’t appreciated my youth at that earlier time. We appreciate our youth more retrospectively (as something we used to have) than contemporaneously (as something we have).

● A Note on Optimism:   They say that being optimistic adds five years to a person’s life. Which is good: he’ll have five more years to enjoy his optimism.

● 1-19-2001:   The recent presidential election will provide us with an interesting juxtaposition: one of the most intelligent U.S. presidents (Bill Clinton) followed by one of the least intelligent (George W. Bush).

● A clicking tock . . .

● 1-22-2001:   If we think of a person’s dying as his “going to his reward,” why do we consider the death penalty the “ultimate punishment”?

[Later note (2021): It’s because those for whom death is a reward (good people) are the ones who go to Heaven; whereas, those for whom death is the ultimate punishment (bad people—murderers) are the ones who go to Hell.]

● 1-26-2001:   I’m good at solving intellectual problems that are susceptible of solution through writing. But I’m not so good at solving life problems. These are two different sorts of problems, requiring two different sorts of problem-solving abilities. My skill at arranging words on a page is excellent (I like to think), but my skill at arranging my time and my life is abysmal.

● Hope is the thought that a favorable outcome is possible. Optimism is the thought that a favorable outcome is probable. In this sense, optimism can perhaps be described as a more aggressive form of hope.

● To posit, as John Stuart Mill does, that human pleasure is more valuable than the pleasure of “lower” animals (pigs, for example) makes no sense. Pleasure is pleasure is pleasure. It seems to me that the assertion is mere human vanity; it lets us dwell on our superiority to other animals and to believe that our superiority somehow makes us more important than they, our happiness more valuable than theirs. Perhaps more to the point, it serves to rationalize our putting our own interests ahead of those of other animals. If we’re to be intellectually honest, we should admit that we’re merely acting to advance our own well-being, not because we’re humans, and hence more important, but just because we are we, so to speak (or just because we can). We use the same sort of thinking, for the same purposes, when we attempt to distinguish ourselves from other people based on such characteristics as race and nationality; the only difference being that, in the case of other groups of people, our belief in our own superiority is false.

[Later note (2020): What immediately comes to mind when we contemplate the problematicalness of our putting our interests ahead of those of lower animals, like pigs, is our practice of eating them. But does that concern make sense? Probably not. To think so presumes that killing pigs (and, to eat them, we kill them—we don’t wait till they die of old age) is against their interest, as killing us would be against our interest. If a pig was aware that it was being killed, or going to be killed, it might feel terror. But we could kill them in such a way as to avoid that terror, or even that knowledge, on their part. Aside from the terror in knowing that it’s being killed, or about to be killed, a pig, unlike a man, has no interest, and there’s no particular value, in its longevity. It probably has no concept of a good life, or a complete life, or even a long life. It has no long-term projects that it wants to complete. It has no life’s work. There are no great pigs that make significant, lasting contributions to pig culture (and whose lives therefore should be protected). To think that a pig has an interest in longevity, beyond its mere survival instinct, is to anthropomorphize it. And, as intelligent as pigs are, they don’t understand that they’re destined to be slaughtered (for our food). The sole phenomenon in this regard might be the breaking up of pig families—taking away the mother pig, which might cause some distress for her piglets. But that could probably be avoided, or at least minimized, just as we could avoid their knowing that they’re going to be killed. Perhaps the resolution is that we should indeed take into consideration pigs’ well-being—but just to the extent of what actually affects their well-being, which requires only so much; it doesn’t require treating them in every way like human beings. . . . Which prompts this thought about the difference between lower animals and humans: All that matters to an animal is pleasure; but what matters to a man is both pleasure and meaningfulness, including such desiderata as expressing himself, actualizing his talents, achieving fame. . . .]

[Later note (2021): Though we might think that just happiness matters for animals, they probably have no concept of happiness, and they probably don’t seek happiness. Rather, their preoccupation is individual and group survival (the latter in the form of procreation).]

[Still later note (2021): Lower animals don’t have a concept of happiness. But they have happiness, and unhappiness. The concept is ours. But I think it’s reasonable for us to apply that concept to them. You don’t have to be able to think “I’m experiencing pain” to experience pain.]

[Still later note (2021): It occurred to me that I might have contradicted myself: I said that meaningfulness does not pertain to a lower animal, and that therefore what’s important for it is happiness, or at least the avoidance of pain, and not longevity. But then I said that an animal has no concept of happiness or pain, and that it pursues survival. The resolution is this. Both humans and animals have a survival drive. The frustration of a man’s survival drive has both positive and negative undesirable consequences, as it were. The positive consequence is the loss of his contribution to human culture; the negative, his pain. But an animal doesn’t have civilization or culture, so the frustration of its survival drive has only the negative aspect (its pain). And because an animal has no concept of longevity, its pain on the frustration of its survival drive is simpler than a man’s, and easier to avoid. (Which is why we don’t hesitate to kill a badly injured animal—to end its suffering.)]

● Two currently popular phrases to describe innovative thinking are “pushing the envelope” and “thinking outside the box.” Each phrase describes expanding our knowledge, the area within the envelope or box representing our current understanding. But the two phrases differ in significance. Pushing the envelope connotes a slow, gradual expansion of the sphere of knowledge from within, by those on the boundaries; whereas, those who think outside the box make radical changes, with fundamental new discoveries entirely beyond (“outside”) the sphere of present learning or practice. Those pushing the envelope make incremental progress; those who think outside the box make great leaps. With the former, the boundary of knowledge stretches; with the latter, the boundary actually breaks and reforms to encompass the new idea. Envelope-pushers are evolutionary; outside-the-box thinkers are revolutionary. The farther outside and away from the box a person works, the farther ahead of his time he is. The work may be so far ahead that its value and significance are not recognized until much later, if ever.

● 1-29-2001:   I heard a radio program discussing the subject of nothing, or nothingness, from a physics perspective, which is apparently a rather complicated subject. For what it’s worth, here’s my own definition of nothing: Nothing is what remains after the subtraction of all that is. Take everything that exists and subtract from it everything that exists; the result is nothing. (Everything minus Everything equals Nothing. . . . E – E = N.) Nothing is the absence of anything.

● If we consider nothing, or nothingness, as the background or negative (or empty) space in which all that is sits; is not nothing a sort of entity in itself, so that, even if all that existed were ended, something would nonetheless exist? [Later note (2-8-2024): That sounds contradictory.] And even if there were nothing physical, would not truth still exist, like the mathematical truth that two plus two equals four? So perhaps the answer to the question, Could there be nothing? at least in part depends on how we define existence, what it encompasses.

● Nothing is what’s left when you subtract all that exists.

● Nothing is the empty vessel in which everything (else) exists.

● And, man, when you got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose!

[Later note (7-17-2022): The greatest possible emptiness would be the absence of all contingent things. Abstract entities, such as mathematical truths (like twice two is four)—entities that “exist” in all possible worlds, even empty worlds—would necessarily still “exist.”]

● 2-4-2001:   President George W. Bush bills himself as a “compassionate conservative.” The “compassion” apparently refers to his promotion of an increase in charity to the poor through faith-based organizations (churches). What no one seems to mention, however, is that Bush also proposes a massive tax cut, disproportionately favoring the rich, redistributing wealth upward, which, even if religious charity rose, would inevitably result in a substantial net reduction in relief to the poor. It’s as if to say, “You’ll no longer have to pay taxes to assist the poor, but please give to charity.” Conservative (or at least Republican)?—definitely. Compassionate?—hardly! . . . Unless, of course, this means compassion for the rich. Another problem with Bush’s proposal is that it violates the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. Perhaps the situation can be summarized thus: If you’re poor and in need of government assistance . . . start praying.

To describe Bush’s proposed tax cut as disproportionately benefitting the rich may be misleading, for that description might suggest that the tax cut benefits everyone, the only drawback being that the benefit is unequal. But not everyone benefits. The poor, on balance, are hurt. While some of them (those who even earn enough money to be taxed at all) may gain initially by saving a small amount in taxes, they lose much more in the reduction of government services that the tax revenues at stake would otherwise fund. Bush tries to evoke a sense of justice about the tax reduction by describing it as returning money to those who paid it. There’s no legal obligation, however, concerning to whom this money should go. We have the money, and we have discretion, a choice, what to do with it. But those who paid the tax are still rich, and those who would be helped by the public spending of it are poor; and so the essential result of this proposed change (this choice) would be to transfer substantial resources from those who have less than they need to those who already have more than they need. Bush has publicly stated that his favorite political philosopher is Jesus Christ. I wonder what Christ would think of Bush’s plan . . ..

● Doesn’t entropy imply that if you went backward in time, things would steadily get better and better? Which doesn’t seem to be the case (if anything, a situation seems to move in cycles: not just down, but rather up and down and back up again, and so on). Moreover, if things tend to deteriorate, how do we account for evolution, which is the gradual improvement over time, from the simpler to the more complex?

If entropy obtains on a universal scale; then, in all prior eternity, would the cosmos not by now have practically come to naught? If the answer is to suppose a countervailing tendency to regeneration; this would mean that entropy is not a universal, controlling principle . . ..

I suppose I just don’t understand the concept of entropy.

[Later note (2-1-2022): Or perhaps there’s a continuing cycle of birth, growth, deterioration, death, and rebirth; and the deterioration and death parts of the cycle are the entropy?]

● 2-5-2001:   What is my destiny? The same, fundamentally, as everyone else’s: to live for a brief moment and then die; and even that is just a meaningless accident. The main purpose served by talking about destiny or fate is to give our affairs, in our own minds, a sense of grandeur or importance, which in reality they lack. Ultimately, our affairs have as much significance as the affairs of a colony of insects, or bacteria. To talk about a man’s destiny to, for instance, become a king or a philosopher makes about as much sense as to say that it’s my destiny to move my bowels at three o’clock this afternoon.

● Let us assume that you believe that two plus two equals four (not five); and let us also suppose that studies showed that people who believe that two plus two equals five are happier and healthier than people who believe that two plus two equals four. The question is: What do you do regarding your beliefs as to those two mathematical equations? Do you attempt to change your belief?

Let us assume that studies show that stupid people are happier than intelligent people. Would you seek to be lobotomized?

● In Christian theory (according to “Can We Be Good Without God?” by Glenn Tinder, Atlantic Monthly, December 1989) all human beings have inherently immeasurable (infinite) dignity and worth, and are therefore to be treated with equal respect and care—regardless of differences in various traits by which we sometimes judge people, such as intelligence. Thus a severely mentally retarded person has the same dignity and should be treated just as well as an intelligent person. But what about other species, such as chimpanzees? Why should even the most intelligent chimpanzee, which may be more intelligent than some people (and was likewise created by God), not have as much dignity and deserve to be treated as well as a human being?

[Later note (2021): This perhaps is more to the point. The reason why Tinder posits that each human has infinite dignity and worth is presumably to give everyone an equal amount of it (to show, therefore, that we should render kindness and respect equally to everyone). But the supposition has a fatal side effect: however much we diminish the dignity or value of an infinitely dignified and valuable thing, its dignity and value remains the same—infinite. Indeed, if we killed all persons but one, there would still be just as much dignity and value—infinitely much.]

● 2-16-2001:   Christians celebrate Christ’s sacrifice, his giving his own life to save the rest of mankind. But in the calculus of moral duty and good conduct, given the enormous disproportionateness between the gain (the salvation of all mankind for eternity) and the loss (one life), wouldn’t anyone in Christ’s position have been expected to sacrifice himself? His sacrifice was not an act above and beyond the call of duty; it was merely what was expected. His doing it was not good; his not doing it would have been evil, because unjustifiable. Besides, it’s not as if he really died, in the significant sense, a loss of his consciousness forever. He is quite alive and well, and presumably experiencing eternal bliss, in Heaven, no?

● 2-18-2001:   I wonder if many people who think they believe in God, actually do. (It may be that sloppy thinking sometimes hinders our distinguishing between what we’d like to believe and what we truly do believe.)

[Later note (2-1-2022): I wonder if I didn’t there have too rosy a view of the average man’s potential for clear thought.]

[Later note (5-8-2022): Perhaps the foregoing comment (the one of 2-18-2001) constitutes a lapse of clear thinking on my own part: If we believe something, however we came to believe it, whether through faulty reasoning, sloppiness, or otherwise, we nonetheless . . . believe it.]

● About my essay “Morality and Religion,” and the paragraph in it that ends, “. . . I volunteer my legal services to help domestic violence victims, not because I feel . . . that God wants us to treat people with compassion, but, rather, simply because I feel . . . compassion.”

I hasten to clarify my meaning lest I be misconstrued. I do not mean to suggest that a secular philosophy that leads to a person’s acting well is any morally better than a religious philosophy that leads to the same result (even though I think that the former is intellectually superior to the latter because the former is true and the other false). Nor do I mean to say that a simple philosophy is inherently better ethically (or morally) than a complicated philosophy (and surely there are complicated secular philosophies). What I’m saying is that, in moral terms, the underlying philosophy is irrelevant and should be disregarded entirely in evaluating the ethical quality of people’s acts. Indeed, each philosophy is to be appreciated and valued to the extent that it provides the underpinning for a person’s practical ethical impulse. Different sorts of philosophies will work better for different people.

[Later note (2020): In saying that a secular philosophy that leads to a person’s acting well is true, but that a religious philosophy that leads to the same result is false, I erred. The latter is false (in its religious content), but the former is not true—it’s merely a felt moral obligation, which, unlike a proposition, is not true or false.]

[Still later note (2021): I wonder if there isn’t a contradiction between saying that an underlying philosophy is irrelevant in the ethicality of people’s actions, and saying that a philosophy should be valued, or evaluated, insofar as it underpins people’s actions. That is, the first part says that there’s no connection between philosophy and action; the second says there might be such a connection.]

[Later note (9-24-2023): If compassion for domestic violence victims was an element in my volunteering my legal services to help them, it was not the main element. My main purpose was to learn that area of the law in hopes of finding a job there.]

● 2-20-2001:   When you’re trying to construct an argument against a certain thesis, but you continue to meet with frustration . . . consider the possibility that the position you’re attacking is true.

[Later note (7-17-2022): To clarify, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the position is true. It means merely that you should, at least momentarily, consider that possibility.]

● I think that, through a combination of sloppy thinking and propaganda from organized religion, religiosity and moral goodness have come to be conflated in the public mind. Which explains why so many prison inmates adopt religion in prison: It’s an easy way to prove to themselves and others that they’ve changed and have become “good”; they wrap themselves in the accouterments of goodness. Similarly, “God bless America” is essentially meaningless; the speaker is merely trying to give the impression that he’s patriotic and good, as if to say: “I’m for America, apple pie, motherhood, and goodness!”

● 2-25-2001:   Belief in God is, in a sense, a safe belief to adopt, in that it can never be disproved. By contrast, if you assumed the belief that you would win the lottery by a certain date, or that the world would end next New Year’s Eve, you could be made to look foolish. People could mock you and say, after the lottery, “Well, rich man, where’s your new car?” or, after New Year’s Eve has come and gone, “It looks like we’re still here. What happened?” . . ..

[Later note (2020): About the foregoing entry, I have now written an argument that does disprove God’s existence!—indeed, it argues for God’s impossibility. And yet, now, few people will have seen my argument, and even fewer will have understood it.]

● 2-26-2001:   It may at times be useful to consider a distinction between being depressed and doing an activity, or being in a situation, that’s depressing. (This concerns the difference between clinical and situational depression.)

● 2-27-2001:   If the early bird gets the worm, then ‘tis also true that the early worm gets the bird. So, in deciding whether to get up early (in order potentially to get a worm), you must first decide whether you’re a bird or a worm . . ..

● 3-3-2001:   Money may not make you happy, but lack of money can surely make you miserable.

[Later note (2021): The adage that money doesn’t make you happy, was probably invented and propagated by the rich to make the poor content with their poverty, so they wouldn’t rise up against the rich and seize a fair share of wealth.]

● 3-4-2001:   I had (what I thought was) a profound thought that I was going to write down here . . . but I forgot what it was.

● The importance of context: “This vacuum cleaner really sucks!” . . ..

● The notion of God’s creating all (else) that exists is counterintuitive. For it means that all else that exists came from something more complex and sophisticated than itself (surely, God is more sophisticated than man or anything else in creation), whereas our usual experience is with the reverse process: the more complex evolving from the simpler, as in evolution. (Or could you argue that the analogy is like man inventing things, that things we create are less sophisticated than we are . . .?)

● 3-12-2001:   Regarding the Taliban’s destroying huge Buddha statues in Afghanistan, they don’t have the right to do that. Great or historically significant art does not belong to any one person or nation, but rather to the world. Those responsible should be punished for crimes against humanity.

● 3-16-2001:   I just heard an interview of the longest surviving AIDS patient, who attributed his long survival to God’s having a purpose for him. Which, I suppose, means that God let the other (many millions of) AIDS victims die because He did not have a purpose for them . . ..

● I suspect that many religious people who do self-sacrificial good deeds are not really doing those deeds purely unselfishly, but rather because they feel that, even if other people are not aware of their good deeds, nonetheless God is aware of them, and they feel they’ll thus get some sort of cosmic credit for their good deeds, even if only in the form of God’s acknowledgment or awareness.

● 3-22-2001:   I sit here trying to think of images to make a poem, to express the poignancy of life’s shortness, to stimulate the reader, and myself, to a greater appreciation of the preciousness of our brief life. But I can’t think of any particularly good images for the purpose. And I’m left with the simple intellectual realization that right now I exist, but soon I won’t, and I’ll never be again; and it will happen irrespective of my readiness for it, of whether I’ve managed to write a good poem about it, and regardless of how I feel, or have felt, about it.

● 3-25-2001:   To write well, you must know what you’re talking about.

● 3-30-2001:   It’s easier to make up an actor to look older than to look younger. Why?

● 4-1-2001:   Life is so much simpler when you’re dead. . . . And, in my case, so much more pleasant.

● Did Jesus Christ know, before he died, that he would be resurrected? When was he first aware of his special status as the son of God?

Is Christ busy? Does he work hard? Does he manage his time efficiently? Does he ever get tired? Does he take breaks from his work? (And if so, on what schedule? . . . And, what exactly is his work?) Does he write anything down or use a computer, to keep track of things, or does he do it all in his head? Is he happy? Does he ever feel bad? How happy, or unhappy, does he feel, and what makes him feel so? Does he ever attempt to make himself feel good, or better? Does he ever reward himself? Does he enjoy his work? Is he proud of what he’s accomplished, of what or who he is? (And what has he accomplished?) Does he work better when he’s happy? Where is he? In what form is he? Does he have a body? Does he exercise? Does he feel his body? Does he have sexual feelings? (If so, what does he do when he feels them? Take a cold shower?) Does he have a good working relationship with God? Just what is his relationship to God? Do they work together, cooperate? Is Christ God’s right-hand man, his assistant? Do they ever disagree with each other? If so, how do they resolve the disputes? What’s the division of labor between them? Do they have a sense of humor? Do they ever share a laugh, their sense of humor, between them? Same questions as to God and the Holy Ghost . . . what does the Holy Ghost do? Why don’t people pray to the Holy Ghost? . . . Did God create man for God’s purpose (and what is God’s purpose?): for God’s sake, or for man’s? Did God create the angels? How does He decide who is to be an angel, or a man, or a dog or a cat?

If you pray to God, and He doesn’t answer your prayer, can you then pray to Christ for the same thing? And if Christ doesn’t answer the prayer, can you then pray to the Holy Ghost for it?

Does Christ provide only beneficence, but God gives both beneficence and vengeance? The dirty work is reserved for God?

● 4-8-2001:   I think that those (mainly religious) people who find the theory of evolution offensive, feel that way, not so much because of the theory’s implication as to man’s past, where man came from, but because of the implication about man’s future, where man might go. Those people like to think that man, created by God in God’s image, is an absolute, ultimate perfection. But evolution suggests that man was not a necessary form of being, but rather an accidental, arbitrary form, and, even more threatening to our vanity, that creatures more sophisticated and intelligent than man are possible, and may one day even evolve from man, a process that we ourselves might knowingly facilitate or accelerate.

● 4-14-2001:   If, by giving, sacrificing, his only begotten son, Jesus Christ—that is, by letting Christ die—God saved mankind; didn’t Christ’s resurrection undo, take back, revoke, that salvation? If not, why not? Did the resurrection not undo the death, so that the net result was as if Christ had not died, so that there was no real sacrifice? For isn’t the essence of death, permanent loss?

● I’ve said, “A piece of writing is the way it is, not because the writer wanted to express some particular thought or sentiment, but, rather, because he couldn’t think of anything better to say.” By which I mean that I write, not so much to express myself, as to produce a good piece of work; in a word, I write out of pride rather than truth; for me, truth comes into the picture merely because, all else being equal, truth, profundity, is more interesting and valuable than untruth or triviality. For example, Einstein was a very brilliant physicist; but he would be far less famous if his equations and theories turned out to be wrong, or had no significant or interesting application. Don’t get me wrong: I’m indeed proud of the content of my best work. But I’d be just as pleased with any equally good content (and if the content were even better, I’d be even more pleased). What I value is having the best possible content—not necessarily this content. But pondering this issue again recently, I wonder if that isn’t an oversimplification, since I’m not only an artist, a creator, but also a philosopher. I have curiosity, and I tend to contemplate philosophical questions. And I wonder which is more basic, the part of me that philosophizes, or the part that wishes to create. Do I philosophize simply because this is my best creative product, my best raw material for my writing? (in which case, the opening quote would be true, of me). Or is the opening quote more an instance of my philosophizing, of my philosophical mind observing a truth about myself and about some other artists, or a theoretical distinction? Perhaps it’s a little of both. If I believed that no one else would ever read my work, I might still philosophize; but I might not go to the trouble of writing it down, or of revising it (and, for most writers, including me, good writing is all about the rewriting). And, of course, since writing both requires and facilitates rigorousness and comprehensiveness of thought, of argument, of philosophy; the lack of impetus to write would greatly reduce, if not wholly nullify, my philosophizing. (In fact, given that belief [that what I wrote would never be read], I don’t know if I’d have motivation to live at all.) But in the last analysis, while I’m genuinely intellectually curious and thoughtful, I philosophize first to create a product that will leave a mark, and only second to satisfy my intellectual curiosity or to achieve enlightenment (even though knowing this about myself makes me more enlightened).

It may be that the thought or perspective the writer expresses is one and the same as his creative idea. Yet the question remains: which comes first, the perspective, the thought, or, rather, the desire to produce art? Does the writing come about because the writer has a thought, which he then puts into a piece of writing, or does his desire to write prompt his mind to search out raw material for it?

Again, I suspect it’s a little of both, and that what varies among artists is the emphasis, or proportion. A more thoughtful person will make a better writer, but someone who wishes to write will do more studying and thinking, more philosophizing, in an effort to find material for his writing. From this perspective, I suppose you could divide writers into two categories: one, those who write to express a point of view, and, two, those who write to create work . . . or, we might say, those who write in order to express themselves versus those who express themselves in order to write. I’m in the latter category. As I put it in one of my tankas (they were lost; this is one of the few I happen to remember):

Discovering a
New form of art, for oneself,
Subconsciously sets
To work a derrick dredging
Up material for it.

Nonetheless, even literary writers in that latter group will sometimes write for a particular non-artistic purpose; for example, to request a refund from a merchant. And some writers perhaps create literature, not so much to produce an artistic object, as to engage in a sort of high-level social interaction, or discourse; one might even describe literature as humanity’s conversation with itself, a discussion among great minds about issues important to all people.

Another issue or dichotomy concerning artistic motivation is the extent to which the artist produces it so as to enlighten or otherwise benefit humanity at large. I must admit (I don’t have to admit it, but I will) . . . that my desire to do great work is purely selfish, to benefit me, to achieve glory. . . . I wonder whether one day, if it seems that this will ever be published and read, I’ll edit out the previous remark (or this paragraph) . . . Well, at least for now, I’m safe, as nothing I write gets published. . . . Perhaps if society gave me a little recognition, instead of totally ignoring and rejecting me, I might feel a bit more beneficent toward it. There’s perhaps a part of me that’s somewhat bitter.

Most artists, I believe, when asked, claim that they produce their art to benefit the world, rather than for selfish reasons. Either I’m unusual in this regard, or many other artists are not being entirely forthright. Similarly, I think most writers say they write to express some particular point of view or accomplish some specific goal, rather than just to produce the best possible creative work. Perhaps they do this so that they can be seen, by others and themselves, as having accomplished their purpose, and because they want to appear modest, and unselfish. For example, concerning my essay An Argument for Drug Decriminalization, people are more likely to think I achieved my objective, and to respect and like me, if I say I wrote it to stimulate public debate on that important contemporary social issue, than if I say I wrote it to create a great piece of literature, in which event they’re likely to laugh at me, and think I have delusions of grandeur, and perhaps dislike me. And so, if my essay on drug decriminalization is ever published, I’ll publicly claim that my purpose in it was the former. I’ll leave it to people reading this Diary to find out otherwise. But if this Diary ever comes to the public’s attention, that will perhaps mean that I’ve achieved my grander goal, and so then this admission won’t hurt me.

. . . Music is an art form in which the above distinction doesn’t apply: the distinction, that is, between expressing oneself in order to produce art, or producing the art in order to express oneself, because in music the form and content are one and the same. Music has no utility other than art. Music and graphic art can have beauty, but not truth. Whereas, verbal writing can have both beauty and truth (or neither, or just one). When it has both, the truth can enhance the beauty. By and large, a work that’s both true and beautiful is greater than a work that’s one but not both. If an author writes two good pieces, one that’s beautiful but not true; the other, true but not beautiful, he probably would, if he had a choice, rather have written just a single work, but which combines the beauty of the one and the truth of the other. Which may be to say that most artists would rather have produced one great work than many merely very good ones. Is an artist to be judged by his best single work, or by his body of work as a whole? (a question once posed by my teacher Dr. Lesley Johnstone).

● 4-20-2001:   When you’re considering performing an action for the specific purpose of hurting someone else, but you’re having second thoughts about it because the act may also harm you; in deliberating whether to go through with the action, the relevant comparison should be, not whether the act will hurt the other person more than it will hurt you, which we sometimes feel is the pertinent calculation, but instead whether the action will help you more than it will hurt you. To do an action that would on balance hurt yourself seems irrational, even if it also fulfills your desire to harm someone else. Your sense of self-worth should cause you to put your well-being above your enemy’s harm. (Would you cut off one of your own hands to have your enemy lose both of his? Would you cut off both of your own hands to have two of your enemies lose both of theirs?) And remember: “Living well is the best revenge.” This is to be distinguished from a situation wherein harming another person would help others, as for example in disabling a criminal to prevent his committing further crimes.

● 4-28-2001:   Sometimes when I see people with tattoos, I think critically of them, feeling that they’ve desecrated, ruined, mistreated their body. But then it occurs to me that I’m being hypocritical (or at least inconsistent), because, at least in the case of a person, like me, who values his creative productivity, it’s an even greater act of self-defilement or self-harm to waste one’s time, which I do to an extraordinary extent. You hurt yourself by wasting your time no less than you would by taking a knife and arbitrarily slicing off a piece of flesh. Which is worse depends upon, in the case of your time, how much of it you waste, and when; and, in the case of your body, how much flesh you cut off, and where. (See my poem “The Easy Way Doesn’t Work.”)

● 4-29-2001:   For the last three days or so, I’ve had an interesting experience (it’s interesting to me, anyway); which is that the little naps I take just after I get up for the day have been unusually, deeply satisfying, and I’ve slept unusually well during them, yet I haven’t felt unusually well or been particularly energetic during the remainder of the day, after the nap . . . though yesterday I did forget to take my morning antidepressant (Wellbutrin). I don’t know what accounts for the unusual character of sleep during these naps, whether it’s less noise, perfect temperature . . . though I’ve just recently started covering my eyes with a black cloth to keep out light (perhaps that’s it, together with perfect temperature, and quiet).

● In driving, the weakest link, so to say, of a motor vehicle is usually the driver.

● A personal motto, that I wouldn’t mean to apply to or propose for anyone else, might be: Rest when you must; work when you can.

● 5-3-2001:   Using amphetamines or addictive sleeping medications (instead of natural methods, like getting more sleep and adjusting your schedule) is to the body what using toxic chemical fertilizers or pesticides (as opposed to organic methods, like introducing a pest’s natural predator) is to agricultural crops. It achieves a short-term advantage at the expense of longer-term problems, and usually is ultimately counterproductive, not worth the cost . . . assuming you’re going to live longer than a few days.

● Proposer:   Did you hear that the Surgeon General has now come out with a handbook on suicide prevention?
Skeptic:   Yes; but I wonder what the purpose would be.
P:   To prevent suicide.
S:   I know that; I meant the purpose of preventing suicide.
P:   Now I don’t know what you mean.
S:   I mean, why should we try to prevent those who want to die from doing what they wish to do—dying?
P:   Because many times the wish is only temporary and passes fairly quickly. And, after it passes (if the person is still alive), he’s glad he didn’t act on his suicidal inclination. Suppose a strain of the common cold suddenly developed whereby, after two weeks of nasal congestion, there was a twenty-four-hour period in which the sufferer experienced an intense, even overwhelming, urge to commit suicide. If you got this version of the common cold and there were a vaccine you could take, with no side effects, that would eliminate the suicidal symptom, would you not, before the suicidal phase set in, wish to take the vaccine?
S:   Yes, I would.
P:   And, if the only drawback of the vaccine were that it was not always effective, but you could arrange to have someone stop you from committing suicide if the vaccine failed to work, would you not make that arrangement?
S:   I suppose I would.
P:   And if the suicidal period were two years instead of twenty-four hours, would your conclusion be different?
S:   No.
P:   And if you had no warning that you would succumb to this deadly version of the cold, and so you’d made no advance arrangement for it, wouldn’t you nonetheless hope that, if you became suicidal, someone would attempt to stop you from carrying it out?
S:   Yes.
P:   And if the suicidal urge resulted, not from a cold, but from some other, perhaps an unknown, cause, would your conclusion be different?
S:   No.

● Some people have called my sense of logic “common sense.” But it seems to me that if that’s common sense, then common sense is not common at all; or, I’d like to think of mine as sublime common sense.

● 5-4-2001:   If you’re sitting or standing up and you’re asked to imagine a vertical line, the line you picture is, so to say, vertical. But if you’re lying down and you’re asked to picture a vertical line, is the line you imagine vertical or horizontal? (If you thought the line actually existed and you reached out to draw it, in which direction would the mark run?)

● I wonder which feels worse: to have a life’s purpose but seriously doubt that you’ve accomplished it, or to feel no purpose.

● The prisoner is condemned to spend his life behind bars; the prison guard is condemned to spend his life in front of bars.

[Later note (2021): Yes, but unlike the prisoner, the guard goes home at night and on the weekends, and he’s free to try to find a different job.]

● I once wrote a sonnet, my only sonnet, which was among the (majority of) my writing that was lost. The poem was an argument against the notion of living just for today, advocating instead sacrificing short-term pleasure for the sake of long-term productivity; the sonnet concluded with this couplet:

I think I never smelled a fragile flower
Until my writing showed that I had power.

● The pseudo-profound doctrine that you should live as if today were your last day is absurd on its face. If you believed you wouldn’t live beyond today, you wouldn’t accomplish any long-term projects because, feeling that you wouldn’t finish them, you wouldn’t start them. Your work would therefore be limited to what you felt you could accomplish within a day, which would severely limit your productivity, since the great majority of worthwhile productions take considerably longer than a day to complete. In fact, it’s doubtful you would ever really do any work at all. If this were your last day of life, how much work would you be inclined to do? I would pursue pleasure exclusively; more specifically, I would do nothing but become and stay intoxicated on drugs, and I wouldn’t care if it killed me. I would surely not get a job or pursue my education, or more generally do anything that involved short-term loss, for the sake of long-term gain. Such mode of living, if I managed to live much longer than a day, would probably doom me to a rather miserable, regretful life on balance, especially in my later years. Of course, the true principle here is that you should act in accordance with the longevity you expect, and different expected lengths of life indicate different sorts of actions. If you truly believe you won’t live past today, then, by all means, do what will maximize your pleasure today, regardless of any long-range consequences your actions might otherwise have (unless of course you think you can accomplish something great and enduring today). If, however, you think you’ll probably live a long life (and if you wish to live a long life), it behooves you to do what will maximize your overall (long-term) well-being, which almost inevitably involves a measure of short-term sacrifice.

● 5-6-2001:   Jesus Christ is history’s most famous martyr.

● 5-9-2001:   All great writers are geniuses, but not all geniuses are great writers . . . or great anything else.

● If an animal in a zoo were acting badly, and you wanted to punish it; would you put it in jail?

[Later note (2021): You could do so, in effect, by putting it in a smaller cage.]

● 5-12-2001:   Using drugs to gain a short-term advantage, as for example, taking stimulants to combat fatigue and get more work done, is like borrowing money to buy what you want now. Each entails a long-term cost. But the cost tends to be greater in using drugs than in borrowing money. If you miscalculate with your finances, you can always get a fresh economic start by declaring bankruptcy; and/or you can always come into more money, by hard work or good fortune. But your time and energy in life, which drug use affects, cannot be magically or artificially restored or enhanced. You start out with a certain fund of them, and you never recoup what you lose, or gain windfall increases. Which means that, as serious and cautious as you should be in matters of money, you should be even more so in matters, such as drug use, that affect your energy and time.

(The prod for the foregoing paragraph was my temptation to take stimulant medication [amphetamines, for which I now have a source] to help me speed up my reading of a law book, which reading prospective employers advised me to do in advance of possibly hiring me. And it occurred to me that doing so [taking the stimulants] was like borrowing money, and might be a good investment. If you need a car to get a job, borrowing the money to buy the car is a good investment because it enables you to earn money, from which you can both repay the loan and continue to accumulate money. But then I thought that if things don’t work out as planned when you take the stimulants; for example, if after you finish reading the book and you quit using the drugs your fatigue comes back even worse than it was before [as is likely] . . . you cannot, as you could do in the car situation if things didn’t work out, go bankrupt and start over. In using drugs, bad consequences are permanent, irrevocable. You can’t cancel the bad effects by decree, with a stroke of the pen. This thought reinforced my existing decision to refrain from taking amphetamines.)

● I’ve said that perhaps my greatest weakness is laziness. I tend to avoid work, and to act only when doing so is easy. It’s as if I’m in a sailboat and my goal is to travel as far as possible. I tend to wait for the wind to propel me; whereas, when there’s no, or very little, wind, I should take up the oars and row. By rowing, you not only progress when otherwise you wouldn’t, but you also encourage the wind to come again (by moving to a place where there’s more likely to be wind).

[Later note (2-2-2022): “. . . you encourage the wind to come again by moving to where there’s more likely to be wind.” Does that make sense?]

● “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Sometimes I think perhaps I’ve been led to water, but I don’t realize it . . . or I’m so lazy, or have so lost my perspective, that I’m waiting for someone to scoop some up in a glass and hand feed me.

● 5-17-2001:   My essay “Thoughts on the Big Bang Theory” is a blend of physics and metaphysics.

● 5-20-2001:   In a sense (please don’t ask me what sense), almost everything I’ve written since I wrote “Ethics” is a mere footnote to that work.

● Tomorrow is my fiftieth birthday! I feel good about it just now because I am, right now, in the active process of composing one of my better pieces of work, “Thoughts on Morality” (though I may retitle it later [ . . . I did—it’s now just “Morality”—and this was the first version of it; there are now twelve significant revisions of it, the most recent one having been done in May 2021. That first version was awful!]). It has probably taken far longer than it should (perhaps several decades longer), but I’ve come to learn what’s truly important to me: building my body of creative (written) work. It seems that the only times I’m happy are when I feel good about my creative productivity, which often is when I’m in the process of composing. (Of course, my purpose is to build my body of work, not to be happy. Happiness is a mere sub-goal, or fringe benefit. But maybe happiness also usefully serves to indicate whether I’m doing the right thing in my life. Perhaps it’s also, in a way, a means to the ultimate end. I don’t know to what extent the happiness that often accompanies my creative process is cause or effect, or both; but it probably helps, since energy is conducive to creative work, and it seems that, for me, energy and happiness are closely associated. Another lesson I’ve learned, however, is that one of my worst failings has been to postpone work until I’m “in the mood” for it. And if I have one wish for myself from here on, it’s to somehow find the will to work hard, at the right tasks, come what may.) . . . Afternote: It’s now 7:00 p.m., Sunday, 20 May 2001; and I’ve just finished that new piece, “Thoughts on Morality.” I’m pleased with it; I think it’s an important addition to my body of work. I’m also pleased with the timing: I got it in (or out) before (just before) turning fifty! . . . Happy Birthday!

● 5-21-2001:   Can something come from nothing? If so, what, and how much of it, can come from nothing? . . . If something can come from nothing, will twice as much come from twice as much nothing?

● 5-22-2001:   I had a very pleasant day. Yesterday (my birthday) I worked (I studied a workers’ compensation law textbook and revised/polished my new essay, “Thoughts on Morality”); I had considered taking the day (yesterday) off, but the weather was bad, and I was motivated to work (as I’ve said, “work when you can; rest when you must”). But today I had extreme difficulty concentrating on the reading (and the revising seemed largely complete); and the weather was very good, so I decided to take today off, as a delayed birthday celebration of sorts. I drove to the beach, taking a long scenic route. It was most fortunate timing to have finished an important new piece of writing on my birthday (I did the final major revisions yesterday, though the essential draft was finished the day before). The accomplishment makes me feel good, both because I feel good about having created that particular composition and because it gives me considerable encouragement for the future, encouragement that I can still be substantially creatively productive, and that, through that continued, or resumed, productivity, I might also be able to find some happiness.

(As a result of the loss of the great bulk of my writing two decades ago, and since I’m not very prolific, my body of work [the portion of it that I consider literature] is far smaller than I’d like, which makes any single piece of writing [proportionately] more important. . . . My bad feeling over the loss of my writing, and my corresponding good feeling about my surviving works, must be additionally qualified by the fact that I value quality over quantity, that, in other words, I would rather have fewer works, but of higher quality or importance, than a greater number of works of lesser quality or importance; a particular case being that I would prefer to have what I consider my greatest single work, my magnum opus, “Ethics,” alone, than all my other works minus “Ethics.”)

● 5-23-2001:   Along the lines of yesterday’s (5-22-2001) hopeful entry, what worries me about getting older is diminishment of both power and feeling. About loss of feeling, it occurred to me that the worry is somewhat misplaced; for the relevant question is not so much how happy you are, but instead simply whether you’re happy or unhappy. And I thought that I can still be happy, and that being happy (regardless of the feeling’s intensity) is what matters, so to speak, in this regard. (If you feel good [to whatever degree] . . . you can’t feel bad . . .)

● A letter I sent:

25 May 2001

Marc Cooper
c/o KPFK
3729 Cahuenga Boulevard West
North Hollywood, California 91604

Dear Mr. Cooper:

I’m a regular listener to your daily program on KPFK (KPFK is my favorite radio station, and your program is one of my favorite programs). I’m writing to comment on a statement you sometimes make on air during fund-raising drives: namely, that listeners should support the station, not for the sake of others, but instead solely for their own sake. I agree that most listeners get considerable personal benefit from listening (I do), and that to maintain that personal benefit is a legitimate reason to support the station. I think it would be more accurate, however, to say that listeners should support the station for selfish reasons and unselfish ones. The value of the information and ideas disseminated by your program and others on KPFK consists, not only in entertaining, educating, and enlightening listeners (though this is an important advantage), but also, I hope and believe, in enabling and motivating listeners to work to improve society at large. Indeed, for the most part, an important distinction between people on the Right and people on the Left is that people on the Right are selfishly motivated, acting to advance their own interests, regardless of the effect (and it’s usually a negative effect) on the general public, whereas people on the Left are ethically motivated, acting—or at least attempting—to bring about society’s greater good, even if at times it goes against their own well-being. (The social policy arguments of the Right are glorified rationalizations for what’s good for them; arguments of the Left are philosophies of what’s good for the world.) And even from a selfish perspective, part of a listener’s personal satisfaction in supporting the station is his knowledge that a contribution to KPFK is also a contribution to society. In fact, I believe, KPFK is so rare and so valuable a media source of important information and truth on issues that critically affect the world, that supporting it is one of the most efficient means by which a person can benefit society.

Thank you for your attention . . . and for your fine work.

Respectfully,

Richard J. Eisner

● 5-26-2001:   Most time-management experts emphasize the importance of setting specific goals, tasks that a person or organization wishes to accomplish by certain times. I used to feel guilty because I was never able (or willing) to effectively set such goals. But lately it has occurred to me that such goal setting might not pertain to my situation, since my sole overriding goal is one with no specific time frame and is purely a matter of degree: namely, to maximize my body of work . . . during my lifetime.

● For my goal of maximizing my body of work, I need to determine how to allocate my time between actively working on my own writings versus studying the work of other men, which (the latter) I need to do for education and inspiration. For example, I need to know what has already been accomplished, so that I don’t waste my time recreating it.

● 5-27-2001:   I played (or studied) the violin for three or four years, beginning when I was thirteen. At that time, playing the violin was my main identity and my main purpose in life. My great worry and agony during those years concerned my fingers, which I believed were too large to be able to put close enough together on the violin fingerboard to make half-tone intervals. I now realize that that was not a problem, and that, on the contrary, I had beautiful hands for playing the violin. I no longer value playing music. It’s creating art, rather than performing it, that I value.

● As a writer, be wary of a certain problem that comes with success, which may cause you to feel that you no longer have to work hard at the writing, as you used to, that you no longer need to get down on the ground and wrestle with it, so to speak. Just because your writing has improved and/or been recognized as good, or excellent, doesn’t mean you don’t still have to go through the same process as you used to in order to create it. And of course the danger is that, if you do still need to work hard to produce good work, but you think you don’t (and so you stop working hard at it) . . . you won’t do any more good writing. Remember that what’s important is the writing: it’s what any recognition you achieve will be for. If you rest on your laurels now, later on you’ll regret the loss of work it caused you. Allow yourself to feel good, but maintain your perspective, and keep working . . . hard.

● When scientists or philosophers talk about God, sometimes they’re speaking figuratively or metaphorically, not literally, as when Einstein says, “God does not play dice with the universe,” whereby he means only that there are no truly random events, that everything is causally determined, not that it’s consciously determined by a supreme being. Similarly, in the immediately preceding paragraph, when I say that a writer sometimes must get down on the ground and wrestle with a piece of writing he’s creating, I of course mean it figuratively, not literally—unless . . .

● 5-28-2001:   How well do babies sleep?

● 5-30-2001:   If God is infinitely good, but man is only finitely good, how could man’s existence add anything significant, or be important?, for an infinite quantum is not significantly increased by the addition of a finite sum . . . In other words, to what extent if at all is a universe containing God (and only God) less good than one containing God together with man and the other animals? If the latter universe is better than the former universe, how much better is it, and in what way? Why did God create us?: what do we add?

● 6-3-2001:   Law of Psychic Momentum and Inertia: We (humans) tend subconsciously to feel that our current mood and circumstances will continue. If we’re sad or dejected, we feel (even if we know better intellectually) that we’ll continue to feel so (which, since it’s a low-energy state, is perhaps akin to inertia). If we’re exuberant, we likewise feel that we’ll continue to feel so (which, as a high-energy state, may be likened to momentum). Similarly, if our lives are going poorly, or well, we feel such circumstances will persist. In fact, our sense that the feeling or condition will last can be a component, or overtone, of the feeling itself, and also contribute to the inertia or momentum.

[Later note (11-14-2024): Sometimes we may even feel, irrationally, that, if we’re feeling good enough just before we die, the feeling may somehow continue after we die.]

● I wonder if part of the symbolism of religious buildings that feature domes is the dome’s representation of the human head.

● 6-4-2001:   If you pick out various qualities in the world, such as forcefulness, gentleness, love, and compassion, and assert that they’re all embodiments or facets of God; you’re being selective, inconsistent, if you make this assertion only as to qualities you like or admire. If a man, when he feels love or acts lovingly, is manifesting God; why is he not likewise manifesting God when he feels hate or acts hatefully? Moreover, if you nonetheless insist on maintaining the foregoing distinction, you risk more than just inconsistency. You also undermine the argument for any connection at all between the world and God. For allowing that some feelings and qualities can be independent of God, opens the possibility that all feelings and qualities could be independent of God . . ..

[Later note (2021): Of course, we know that God acts hatefully. We constantly hear stories about God smiting people who for one reason or another offend Him. Also, we’re very familiar with the phrase “the wrath of God.” And, by the way, why should we not act hatefully toward, and smite, those who offend us? Isn’t that kind of behavior good enough for us, if it’s good enough for God?]

● 6-6-2001:   A certain grammar test asks whether “was” or “were” fits better in the sentence, “I wish my brother [was] [were] here.” It seems to me that the answer is that it depends on the circumstances of the brother’s absence: is he absent because he’s on his way but hasn’t arrived yet (was), or because he’s dead (were) . . .?

● I think someday there will be personal flying apparatuses that will allow the wearer to take off, stay aloft, and maneuver in flight (and alight) by flapping wings like a bird. Computerization and small, light, powerful batteries will enable the construction of such devices.

● Why do we have professional sports? Why should we care passionately about the success or failure of teams of men moving a little rubber ball to and fro on the ground? What sense does it make? The answer is simply that it’s the wrong question. Sports is not supposed to “make sense.” We don’t establish the practice a priori, but rather empirically, from the observation that, for whatever reason, or for no reason, we find that we enjoy it. And it’s the same with any number of human activities or institutions, like sex or religion or stamp collecting . . . or writing. It doesn’t make sense, per se (it’s not illogical, but nonlogical); we merely somehow find the activity satisfying, and that’s good enough reason to do it. If someone has an interest that doesn’t make sense to us; it makes even less sense, so to speak, to criticize him for it. Rather, we should be glad for him that he’s found something that interests him (and hurts no one). What gives you a sense of purpose in life, motivation to go on living, is, for anyone, ultimately subjective and arbitrary; it’s no more reasonable for one activity than for another. What’s important, as it were, is simply to find something, anything, that will give you a reason to live and that makes you happy.

● 6-12-2001:   I don’t want merely to fulfill my potential. I want to be better than other men, the best. If I thought my work was not potentially that great, I wouldn’t bother to do it; I wouldn’t do it simply to amuse myself. But having come to believe that my work, or at least the best of it, is first rate, my focus has turned to the maximization of my potential, which I suppose, in any event, is the best one can do.

● So far as I can tell, what Einstein is to physics, I am to moral philosophy, except even more so. As revolutionary as Einstein’s Relativity Theory is, Isaac Newton was not totally wrong; he was wrong just in a few details, which Einstein corrected. But my “Ethics” makes everything in prior philosophy that deals with my subject virtually meaningless. (. . . The only other conclusion is that I suffer from an extreme case of the neurosis known as delusions of grandeur, or sophomania.)

● Quiz: Which word in the phrase “sex and violence” is out of place? Answer: sex. . . . Why? Because the phrase (“sex and violence”) is most often used to criticize various media, for supposedly having too much sex and violence in their programming, which implies that both things (sex and violence) are bad. But, while violence is inherently (or at least generally) bad; sex, though it can be abused, is, when done in appropriate circumstances, a source of healthy pleasure, and so is generally good.

● 6-17-2001:   I would no longer, strictly speaking, urge that someone should (that he has a moral obligation to) pursue some act or course of action; rather, I would attempt simply to motivate him to do whatever it is I may be urging.

● I’m reading John Stuart Mill’s essay Utilitarianism. Because its subject is the same as that of my magnum opus, “Ethics,” and because Mill’s work is probably the most significant work written on the topic (before mine), I thought I should read it. I’m finding many points of agreement, but many of disagreement. It’s not so much that I have specific disagreements, but more that I’ve taken a different approach to the same subject. Mill and I both attempt to deal with first principles of the topic; but I’ve come upon first principles that are even more fundamental than Mill’s. Thus my conclusions do not so much directly contradict his conclusions as make his conclusions somehow less significant, trivial, irrelevant. In this connection, I am to Mill as Einstein is to Newton, except perhaps that my change is even more radical and revolutionary.

● We enact laws in part to implement our notions of morality and justice, but perhaps primarily for a more mundane, practical reason: for our own protection. For example, we prohibit and punish murder, less from our conviction that we shouldn’t kill than from our desire not to be killed. If we thought that we and our friends were somehow immune to murder, and that just our enemies were susceptible to it, we’d be less inclined to ban it, or we’d punish it less harshly.

● 6-23-2001:   “Love God by loving your neighbor.” Why the distinction? Should not both loves be subsumed in the more general principle, to love all (sentient) existence, regardless of its form? (. . . If there’s no God, would you, then, not love your neighbor? . . .) . . . But speaking of God, if we suppose such an entity to exist, if we have any feelings for Him, why should it be love?? I think far more appropriate emotions would be hatred, anger, rage. With His presumed unlimited knowledge, ability, and power; to have made this world as it is, in which sentient beings bear so much misery and pain . . . to posit that He is also totally benevolent, with the best interest at heart of His creatures . . . there’s only one word for such a belief—absurd. No, that’s wrong. There are other words for it: ridiculous, nonsensical, asinine, ludicrous, preposterous, senseless, silly, fatuous, crazy, daft, blockheaded, stupid . . . But then, I don’t believe in God, so I don’t feel such emotions toward “Him”; though I sometimes feel a little frustrated with those who believe in the traditional notion of the all-good, all-powerful God. On further introspection, however, I’m probably not really annoyed with them. For without such believers, I wouldn’t have as much to write about; and my supply of ideas for writing is not unlimited. Hence I should actually appreciate such people. So why am I angry? I don’t know. Perhaps I’m just in a bad mood.

● The mind of a great philosopher is like a prism, which, held up to the world, allows other men to see truth.

● 6-26-2001:   George W. Bush in the presidency seems like a little man who’s wearing a suit that’s way too big for him.

● One of the signposts that I’m no longer young is the transition in the ages of the movie figures with whom I identify. It seems it was just an eye-blink ago that I was as young as or younger than the young heroes, the major characters, in movies; now, suddenly, I’m as old as or older than the middle-aged secondary, supporting characters in those films.

● One of the errors I see in the doctrines of many philosophers is the rationalization of human behavior. We could no more expect that font of love and hate, generosity and greed, ambition and sloth, and hope and despair, that irrational at worst, a-rational at best, entity called human nature to follow logical rules than we could expect water to be able to be stacked in a fireplace and burned.

● My philosophical outlooks differ from those of other philosophers sometimes by breaking apart and further analyzing elements that they’ve mixed together; and other times by fusing elements that they’ve separated.

● 6-28-2001:   I’ve just read a little blurb on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche in a book summarizing various philosophical ideas and terms. I have the feeling that I should study Nietzsche’s thought, and that it will stimulate my own thought, and that I’ll have many disagreements with him. One notion I already disagree with him on is this: He says that no proposition is true for all time; that, rather, it’s provisional or interpretive, always subject to further consideration, criticism, and refinement, if not outright refutation or rejection. I both agree and disagree (in different ways, of course). I agree in that, at the highest theoretical level, I disbelieve in propositional knowledge; we could always, theoretically, be made to believe nonsense, and we have no ultimately infallible way of telling the nonsense thoughts from true thoughts. But coming down one level in theoreticalness, so to speak (on the practical level, one might say), I believe (probably, though I cannot, in the strict sense, know for sure) that many of the propositions I hold are true; and I have great confidence (I first said “faith” but then changed it to “confidence”!, a little ironic perhaps) in the truth of many of my beliefs and philosophical conclusions, of the validity of my philosophical outlooks. In fact, I feel rather arrogant about my philosophy, or philosophies, in this regard, believing that to the extent others disagree with me . . . to that extent they’re wrong. . . . And isn’t Nietzsche’s proposition self-contradictory? “No statement is universally, omnitemporally true” would presumably apply also to that statement (unless, perhaps, it’s an exception . . . and we all know that an exception proves the rule). . . . I love philosophy, and ideas, and writing. I feel encouraged.

[Later note (2021): When I said that the exception proves the rule, I was (obviously?) being facetious. The explanation of the phrase that I once heard which I think makes the most sense is that it comes from a poem, in which, to make it fit the poem’s meter, disproves was contracted to ‘proves. Otherwise, we would have the absurd situation in which you could cite exceptions to establish a proposed rule, and the more exceptions you could cite, the more strongly the rule would be proven.]

● Do birds enjoy flying?

● Probable implies possible, but not vice versa.

● 7-6-2001:   Nothing that takes forever can ever be attained or accomplished, not even theoretically, because you cannot reach forever. So, also, nothing can last forever, because, even if an entity is indestructible, it can never have existed for an infinite length of time, because forever never comes. . . . But what of that which has always existed; if there’s no specific time when it came into being, has it not existed forever?

● 7-7-2001:   I’ve come to know that, when I consider something I’ve written perfect, probably the most I should be confident of is that, at that time, I don’t detect any flaws in it, and can’t think of any way to improve it.

● I learn to improve my writing in part from reading other writers, by observing both their strengths and their weaknesses, and incorporating some of the strengths and avoiding some of the weaknesses in my own work. For example, when I recently read John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, I noticed certain passages in his essay that were a little unclear, but which could have been made clearer by reworking the sentences. When I did some writing of my own shortly thereafter, I recognized several times, by analogy, as it were, that my writing, in certain places, might in the same ways be somewhat unclear to readers, and I rewrote those portions to make the meaning clearer (and I think without sacrificing style, thus on the whole improving the work).

● 7-8-2001:   God and Christ are a father and son operation. (?)

● 7-10-2001:   The mystery, what will happen: You will live until you die.

● I don’t fear death, per se. What I fear is failing to fulfill my creative potential in life, or failing to achieve recognition for what I’ve created. I fear having had an insignificant life.

● 7-12-2001:   Whether we should try to prevent another person from committing suicide perhaps inevitably involves our (subjective) judgment whether if we were in the circumstances of the suicidal person we’d want to be allowed to end our life, or stopped from doing so.

● Sometimes I’m asked if I learn quickly; and in all honesty I’m not sure I do. But if I don’t learn quickly, it’s because I have higher standards than most people have for what counts for learning, or having learned. It takes longer to build a mansion than to build a shack.

● About the meaning of life, life doesn’t have meaning. Life has no more meaning with the presence of human beings than with the presence of only plants or insects. Our sense of life’s meaningfulness or meaninglessness is not an objective matter: there’s nothing that exists that necessarily gives one a sense of meaning (or that does not exist, whose lack of existence necessarily gives one a sense of meaninglessness). Rather, like happiness or unhappiness, it’s simply a feeling—internal, subjective, and essentially arbitrary, varying from person to person. Each of us must find his own meaning, his own reasons for feeling his life is meaningful and worthwhile, for which feelings, ultimately, no one has any better reason than another.

Likewise, purpose is not something that the universe, or even life, or anything or anyone, has. It’s merely something that individual conscious beings may feel, or not feel. This morning, for instance, my specific purposes were to obtain some batteries for my radio and some food for my dinner, and I therefore traveled to the electronics shop and thence to the grocery store. My ultimate purpose in life is to become a famous writer, according to which purpose I attempted to finish my chores for the day as quickly as I could, so as to leave as much time as possible to study and write . . . and I inscribed in my journal this entry, which was the best material I could come up with today.

(When, on a much better day, I feel I’ve composed something of greater literary merit, which I’m genuinely proud of, I feel wonderful; for at least a brief time, I feel that I’m proceeding in the right direction on a good road, that I’m using my time well, and fulfilling my purpose in life; I feel that my life is meaningful, and I’m happy.)

● Today I spoke on the telephone with my old English Professor Dr. Lesley Johnstone about her possibly helping me to locate some of my lost writing; but she was not hopeful about having or finding any of it. The conversation, which, in my typical fashion, I had procrastinated for a long time, has somehow galvanized me. I’ve come to an awareness of my situation and habits, or perhaps just allowed myself to come to it. I think much of my depression and procrastination and laziness operate together in a vicious circle. I bemoan my losses, one of which is simply my time that I’m so horrendously wasting. My consciousness thereof makes me feel even worse, even more depressed, which I then use as an excuse for continued inaction. And I keep thinking, I keep telling myself, that in order to change my life and get more done, I must somehow get over my depression, I must somehow feel better. But that’s a mental trap. At some point (right now would be a good time), I need to come to this conclusion, that I may never feel any better, I may never feel like working; and so if I want to be maximally productive, which I continually profess is what I want, I cannot wait to start working until I feel different; I must simply get to work, regardless of how I feel. From a slightly more positive aspect, regarding the vicious cycle of depression and lack of work; if I can’t change the feeling directly (which would improve productivity) (and why should I think I should be able to change my mood, as if by some sort of mental isometric exertion?) . . . the element I can change, if I’m determined to change, is my action. I can choose to work instead of relax or play, work a little longer each day, which in turn could make me feel better, and further energize me. In other words, I need to cut through the excuse of my moods, or whatever the excuse is at the time; and just work, try. My problem is no mystery: it’s simply a lack of hard work. . . . If it comes easy, fine; if it doesn’t, work! (All that counts is the end result.) Also part of the vicious circle, I think, is my impression, on some level of consciousness, that I’ve reached a point in my life, because I’m this old, because I’ve exerted so much energy, suffered so much pain, mastered my art sufficiently well, done enough good writing, that somehow I should no longer have to really work hard, really struggle, in order to adequately, substantially progress; a sense which, mixed with a foolish optimism that I somehow have unlimited time and energy left and that circumstances will magically, on their own, go favorably; self-pity; and perhaps even delusions of grandeur in feeling that what survives of the work I’ve done in the past is sufficient—is killing me. It seems to me that, my whole life, or at least the last half of it, I’ve been in a sort of massive funk—in a great cloud of complacency and self-delusion, which an intense dread of the pain of seeing a possibly contrary reality has made me too terrified to emerge from . . . which now I need to snap out of and get to work!

● 7-13-2001:   There’s sometimes a fine line between hope and self-delusion.

● A foolish optimism is the hobgoblin of complacent minds.

● 7-17-2001:   Here’s a suggestion. When you’re in a state of anxious worry, one of the best remedies for it is to, instead of just sitting and worrying, busy yourself with some activity; do some things that you need to get done. Such activity both takes your mind off the worry, and actually accomplishes some work, so that you’re taking some action to remedy the situation that you’re worried about, and so you have less (even if only a little less) to worry about.

● 7-21-2001:   I still have a low-level chronic temptation to use drugs for intoxication (to satisfy a need or desire for pleasure), which urge I must constantly apply some self-discipline to resist. But I’m determined to resist it (and thus far have succeeded), for I know that the relatively small amount of pleasure to be gained from intoxication would not be worth the considerable loss of productivity that it would likely entail. . . . Sometimes (if not all the time) you have to act on what you know intellectually, even if your emotion seems to pull you in a different direction. You won’t always be able to act according to your will, to do what you believe you ought to do; sometimes you’ll lack the physical strength, or the emotional strength, the discipline. But when you are able, do so. (This should not be construed as an opposition to pleasure. Some people value their pleasure over their productivity, or both equally, or in certain proportions; any such preference is perfectly legitimate; our values are subjective and ultimately arbitrary. And everyone needs pleasure. Even those, like me, who value their productivity far above their pleasure, and who are not so fortunate as to derive substantial pleasure from their productive activity, need to take some time off for pleasure, to maintain optimum productivity. [“All work and no play . . .”] But a man should strive to act in accord with his values and goals, his priorities, and this sometimes requires discipline, the postponement or sacrifice of pleasure.)

[Later note (2021): At this time in my life, using drugs recreationally would not be to trade productivity for pleasure. What little pleasure I’d get from the intoxication would be outweighed by resultant unhappiness, even in the near term, over the next few weeks or months. See my essay “Some Reasons Not to Use Drugs” at RichardEisner.com.]

● 7-22-2001:   Lack of discipline and hard work can be a prescription for regret.

● 7-24-2001:   In the oft-used phrase “pain and suffering,” do pain and suffering refer to the same thing, or to different things?

● 8-1-2001:   I’ve called the Twelve-Steps addiction recovery program a cult, a street-people’s religion, which implies that I believe it’s in some way less legitimate than the more well-established religions, like Judaism or Christianity. But lately I question the soundness of that distinction, not because it may be too harsh a view of Twelve-Steps, but rather because it may give too much credit to traditional religions.

● 8-2-2001:   I’ve heard someone comment that we each sometimes think we’re the center of the world, the remark being critical of that sentiment. But there is no other center of the world: meaning, not the physical center, but the center of importance or value or interest. In this sense, there is no single center of the world; instead, each conscious being is the center of the world. Each conscious being is the center of his life, of his world. In which sense, there is not a single world, but as many worlds as there are sentient creatures.

● Buddhist teacher Jack Cornfield reminds us that pain (synonymous with suffering) is an unavoidable, inevitable part of the human condition, and implores us to accept it, to surrender to it. Yet he also says, “The cause of all suffering is grasping,” and encourages us to rid ourselves of that cause . . . implicitly in order to escape suffering. Is he not therein grasping after the avoidance of suffering? There seems a contradiction (or two) somewhere.

Perhaps I’m more honest than teachers like Mr. Cornfield, in that, in teaching about the folly of grasping, he’s just as grasping and egotistical as I or anyone else: he takes pride in being more profound and enlightened than the rest of us, but he’s being dishonest about what he’s doing, denying that he takes pride in his accomplishments in this regard, whereas I openly admit that I’m a proud, grasping person. (I admit that pride is ultimately “foolish”: in the great scheme of things, there’s nothing really to be proud of. We didn’t create, we’re not responsible for, whatever talent we possess; and it’s all relative [and ultimately insignificant]; fundamentally, it makes no more sense for me to be proud of how well I write than for a squirrel to be proud of how well it climbs a tree. But at least I’m enlightened enough to know it [and honest enough to admit it], and to know that no other pursuit or goal or value, including the relinquishment of grasping, or the attainment of enlightenment itself, is ultimately any less arbitrary, any more valid or worthwhile, than my own, or than any others.) . . . Like anyone else, I’m simply following my own internal urges, which for me include the maximization of my creative productivity. Others have their own motivations. Mr. Cornfield’s drive may be for the abandonment of grasping (and therefore of suffering) and for the acquisition of enlightenment. And I would encourage all men to pursue their own desires. But don’t imply that your inclinations are somehow superior to or more enlightened than mine. . . . All of which, naturally, is to be distinguished from actions that adversely affect others, such as the hoarding or destruction of scarce resources.

[Later note (2020): There may be a contradiction or hypocrisy here on my part: I say, “Don’t imply that your inclinations are somehow superior to or more enlightened than mine.” Yet that’s how I feel about my own inclinations—that they’re superior to other men’s. On second thought, it’s not contradictory, for the element of myself or my situation that I feel is superior is, not my inclinations, but my philosophy, its content.]

One theoretical weakness of a moral doctrine emphasizing the goal or importance of the absence or alleviation of suffering is its consistency with the nonexistence of sentient beings (in other words, an absence of suffering could be achieved by an absence of consciousness). Because suffering is merely one side (the negative side) of a desideratum with two sides (happiness/unhappiness . . . both elements sometimes encompassed simply by “happiness”); and since positive and negative values of it are commensurable, or exchangeable (a decrease of unhappiness is equivalent to an increase of happiness); therefore, a principle dealing exclusively with either side (either the enhancement of happiness or the reduction of unhappiness), let alone emphasizing specific forms or qualities of happiness or unhappiness, like “joy” versus “pleasure,” or “suffering” versus “pain,” is a partial, incomplete principle; and is logically subsumed within a comprehensive philosophy, like utilitarianism, that focuses on both the maximization of happiness and the minimization of unhappiness.

● 8-6-2001:   People often remark about Mozart that his productivity was all the more amazing given his short life. But he was actually far more fortunate than most people in the amount of time he had for creative work, because he was able to spend practically all his time pursuing it, whereas most of us, who have to earn a living by working for other people, doing tasks other than creating our own art, must confine our creative efforts to weekends, vacations, or our retirement years. And working full time on our jobs may leave us too de-energized to be able to use the rest of our time for creative purposes. We may be so tired that all we can do is sleep or otherwise rest. So Mozart had far more time than most of us have.

● 8-7-2001:   “All is an illusion.” This strikes me as nonsensical. It’s true that we cannot know whether what we perceive corresponds to an actual, objective reality. But the lack of knowledge pertains to both sides of the question: while we cannot know that there’s a correspondence between perception and outward reality, neither can we know that there isn’t. It’s possible, it could simply happen to be, that what we see is real. What makes you think, how do you know, that it’s not?? On the contrary, common sense would suggest that we should accept as true, what seems to be, until we have reason to think otherwise.

● 8-12-2001:   The sea is salty, and we ask, “Why is the sea salty?” But if the sea were not salty, we could just as well ask, “Why is the sea not salty?”

● 8-14-2001:   A political word-cartoon: . . . The picture shows a huge, muscular soldier, dressed in a crisp, new uniform, kneeling down upon, pinning to the ground, a small, scrawny, helpless man, dressed in tatters, the soldier, wearing brass knuckles, pummeling the smaller man to a bloody pulp. The soldier represents Israel, and the small man is Palestine, or the Palestinian people. To the side, looking on, is U.S. President George W. Bush, standing next to a display case, with signs “Made in U.S.A.” and “For Sale,” containing an assortment of brass knuckles. And President Bush is saying: “We encourage both sides to stop fighting.”

● 8-15-2001:   What’s in a name? What’s the essence of personal identity in fame, in getting credit for your work? Some people deny that Shakespeare wrote the plays usually attributed to him. But assuming that Shakespeare actually did write those plays, would our unanimous agreement to deny crediting Shakespeare with their authorship make any difference to Shakespeare’s fame? For as long as we continue to read and/or stage the plays and continue to admire and praise them and recognize that they’re all the work of the same person; would Shakespeare not be satisfied, so to speak, with that? Would that not be the same as crediting them to Shakespeare but merely getting Shakespeare’s name wrong, or misspelling it, say, crediting the works to “Shakespeer” instead of ShakespEARE? Would Shakespeare be any less satisfied with the nature of his renown if, on his deathbed, having received worldwide recognition as the greatest playwright, perhaps even the greatest writer overall, in history, he were suddenly to learn that, through a mixup at his birth, his real name was Smith, but that he would not have an opportunity to so inform the world? Would he suddenly feel devastated, thinking that he would not really be receiving credit for the work he’d created? What’s the meaning of saying that Shakespeare is not the author of the plays? For is not the only significance, the only relevant definition, of “Shakespeare” the person who wrote those plays (and sonnets)? Is the argument over whether Shakespeare wrote the plays not merely a quibble over a name? What difference would it make if Mozart were known only as “M,” or only as the anonymous person who created the body of over 620 musical compositions, which constitute the greatest body of musical work in the world? Would that not serve Mozart’s interests (so to speak) just as well as our attributing the work to someone with his actual, correctly spelled name? Such a situation would satisfy me just as well, in terms of my desire for fame for my own work. I feel that, especially after I’m dead, my identity is one with, is merged with, my work that is (I hope) read and admired. All I care about is that my work live on. And even now, while I’m alive, when I say I’m anguished that I’m not recognized as a writer, what I mean, mainly, is that I’m anguished that my work is not recognized. I would be quite happy to have my body of work recognized as great, even if attributed to someone else . . . especially if that person had not written any work of his own, if he were otherwise a cipher, as it were (though that would not be an important requirement).

● 8-17-2001:   Sometimes we have a feeling, an opinion, a sense, of whether, in general, we’re fortunate or unfortunate. Our determination in this regard as to ourselves or other sentient beings is, of course, ultimately subjective. Some standards which occur to me that we might adopt in making this judgment are these: One, a person is fortunate if the happiness he experiences outweighs his unhappiness. (But, since the feeling of fortunateness or unfortunateness is subjective, you could be more happy than unhappy and yet feel unfortunate, and vice versa.) (. . . I have the impression that, when, about ten minutes ago, I decided to write this paragraph, I had more to say on the subject. But as I get to the end of the paragraph, I cannot, for the life of me, think of anything more to say about it. Did I have more, which I forgot; or was this really all there was? Or perhaps there was more, but what I wrote completely expressed the essential thought, and so nullified or made irrelevant any additional thoughts, or impressions of thoughts, I may have had?)

● I seem to recall having said that intelligence is relative. Let me clarify that. Intelligence is absolute in that a man’s intelligence is at a given level, and doesn’t fluctuate from minute to minute. But it’s relative in the most relevant sense, at least in the sense in which I feel it’s most relevant: in comparison with that of other people. In other words, how I feel about my intelligence, the extent to which I feel intelligent or unintelligent, or am satisfied or dissatisfied with it, involves my perception of it relative to that of other people. I consider myself intelligent if I’m more intelligent than the average person (and, as far as we know, man is the most intelligent animal), or more intelligent than the great majority of people, or than everyone else, or some such standard; and vice versa.

● 8-20-2001:   The classification of a thing (beauty, for example) as subjective is itself objective.

● 8-21-2001:   I find it a little strange when, upon ordering a cup of coffee at a coffee shop, like Starbucks, the server asks me if I would like “room for cream,” since room for cream means less coffee in the cup, the coffee (the caffeine) being the active ingredient, as to which I’m at pains to avoid being shortchanged, as it were. It would be as if, in packing capsules with a medicinal powder prescribed for you by your doctor, the pharmacist, before filling the capsule all the way up, asked you, “. . . room for sugar?”

● I’m fascinated by big ocean-waves, and have lately developed a new pastime of sorts: watching surf at the beach, especially as it breaks on rocks. I check the Internet for times when the surf is expected to be high, and then drive to a good wave-watching spot I’ve found, about forty miles from my present home in Woodland Hills (California). If the surf is heavy, I sometimes remain there all day, variously sitting and standing on the rocks (the bigger the waves, the farther away you have to stay), just watching (and listening), and have even a few times been splashed with sea water.

● Sometimes I’m shocked to realize how quickly time has gone by in relation to how much (how little) I’ve accomplished. It seems that the mechanism is this: you may at a certain stage in your life be very productive, making good use of your time and getting much work done. You feel satisfied about this, and then, since you cannot, or feel you cannot, keep up that pace indefinitely, you relax and slow your pace. At some level of consciousness, you somehow feel or expect that time will likewise slow down to match or accommodate your vacation. And you go on that way, until one day you suddenly realize that time did not slow down, but kept on at the same swift velocity, and that to the extent that you slowed your pace you irreplaceably lost the time, and you agonizingly rue your complacency. (As they say, “Time waits for no man.”)

In retrospect, I think I largely wasted my thirties and forties by shortsightedness and loss of perspective, in spending time and energy writing and polishing legal briefs, as if they were important pieces of writing, instead of working on producing real literature, or what has a chance to be real literature (my poetical and philosophical works). By the very nature of its subject matter, legal writing, however well done, is unlikely to embody important ideas, ideas that the world at large would find of interest. However artful my legal arguments, because they’re constructed in opposition to other arguments of no general literary or philosophical value, the literary worth of my own arguments is likewise limited. It’s as if the moves of a certain chess game were recorded. There may conceivably be some value in the moves of a particularly interesting game. My legal arguments, in that they’re addressed to ultimately insubstantial and worthless matter, are like the record of only one of the players in an otherwise interesting game of chess. Hungry for recognition for my writing, I allowed myself to be seduced into working for the immediate gratification of impressing a small, esoteric audience with a specialized, but probably ultimately worthless, form of writing, at the expense of my ultimate body of work of lasting importance. Precious time, perhaps my best years, squandered, now gone forever. Fool.

● In considering whether we should outlaw abortion, it makes no more sense, I think, to classify a fetus as a full-fledged human (as opposed to a mere potential human) than it does to adjudge a man who discards hundreds of viable sperm cells when he masturbates guilty of mass murder.

● People sometimes criticize the United States’ military interventions by accusing the country of acting like “the world’s policeman.” I think this criticism is inapt, for the policeman characterization suggests that the nation’s motivation is to do what’s right and to keep the peace, for the benefit of the world’s citizens; whereas, I believe, its motives are entirely selfish, advancement of the (financial) interests of big corporations, which control the government. The United States is not the world’s policeman—it’s the world’s criminal.

● 8-22-2001:   If someone were to ask me whether I’m primarily a writer or a philosopher, my first impulse would be to answer that I’m a writer, since my overriding purpose is to write, to create, and philosophy just happens to be the best material I can come up with for my writing. On the other hand, I suppose one could say that that’s part of my philosophy . . ..

● 8-23-2001:   I would rather create one great work than a thousand merely very good ones.

[Later note (12-20-2023): I wonder . . . If each merely very good work is a tile in the mosaic of a philosopher’s philosophy, might they not, together, amount to something greater than any one of them alone?]

● 8-25-2001:   The admonition not to have sex before marriage may be all right for those who marry young, but it’s pretty rough on those who choose never to marry.

● 8-26-2001:   I hate dogs; their barking has caused me considerable annoyance, and loss of sleep.

● 8-27-2001:   What is true success? Success is strictly relative . . . relative to one’s goal(s).

● My perspective on how we should live, what we should pursue . . . or, more accurately, the summary of the effect that my philosophical conclusions have on the heretofore prevailing views on this point, is as follows. We should pursue, not what is valuable, but rather what we value . . . or, more exactly (since this is simply my own perspective, which I wouldn’t necessarily purport to encourage others to adopt [“we”], let alone as a moral obligation [“should”]): I pursue or attempt to bring about, not what is valuable, but rather what I value. And my specific philosophical conclusion that produces this change in perspective is my discovery (my conclusion, anyway) that intrinsic value is impossible, that nothing (that is, not anything) is valuable. When we feel that some certain thing or situation is valuable, or important, it’s not that it’s valuable (it’s not [intrinsically] valuable), but simply that we value it; not that it’s important (it’s not), but just that it’s important to us. (. . . And I repeat this point so often [in ways different enough to make the repetition interesting and worthwhile, I hope], not because I think it is important [it’s not], but rather because it’s my discovery, or theory, and I’m proud of it. . . .)

● Today I heard a Buddhist teacher (a man whose last name was Wallace) in a radio interview say something to the effect that the source of suffering is ignorance. What rubbish! The two qualities are entirely independent. There’s much truth in the adage, “Ignorance is bliss.” Knowing the truth can be very painful or very pleasurable, depending on what the truth is. If we’ve just won the lottery, knowledge of the truth may bring us joy. But if our spouse has been unfaithful to us, knowledge of the truth can bring us great pain. Enough said.

● Today’s (28 August 2001) national news is dominated by the story of the U.S. Budget Office’s official announcement that the national budget surplus is far smaller than was projected. And the debates are flying as to whether this will put social security funds at risk, and just how to classify the (little) remaining surplus, and whether this is a good or a bad thing, et cetera. But in the broadest terms, this is the situation: The Bush administration represents the rich. When Bush was running for president a year ago, he stressed the large size of the budget surplus because that made it easier to rationalize, made more palatable, his proposed giving of a huge amount of public treasury money essentially to the rich. In other words, if we know we have only a little money, we’re more likely to decide to use it conservatively (in the other sense of the term: restrained, cautious, tending to conserve), and distribute it where the need is greatest, to those who need it the most (the poor, who need it badly—the rich don’t really need it at all). The larger we think the surplus is, the less wrong it seems to distribute it in a carefree, and what might otherwise seem imprudent, way, by giving a large part of it to the wealthy . . . with the implicit promise that, even after we do so, there will still be plenty left to take care of more basic needs. So Bush convinces everyone that there’s a huge surplus; and as soon as he gets into office, he hurriedly gives a massive amount of public money to the rich. Then, a few short months later, we discover (lo and behold!), the budget surplus was much smaller than we thought, so much smaller, in fact, that the sum that was given to the rich was not part of the surplus—but, rather, almost to the dollar, the entire surplus. Now, of course, in order for the national treasury not to go into debt, we must be very conservative with the little bit that’s left, and exercise wise fiscal restraint, and not indulge in “wasteful government spending”—that is, on programs to help the poor. In other words, we gave a lot of money to the rich; we thought there would be some left for the poor. We miscalculated, an honest mistake. But wait a minute; when you think about it, giving all the money to the rich was actually the best thing for the poor, because, in a roundabout sort of way that economists understand, giving it to the rich is actually the most efficient way to get it to the poor, because the richer the rich are, the more money they’ll have to trickle down on the poor; for example, they’ll use the money to hire poor people; so, in effect, really, the poor got that money. You see, there’s a good reason why I was elected president—and why they call me a compassionate conservative. You know I have your best interests at heart. So relax. Don’t worry, be happy. Have a nice day.

● The Bush administration really is bipartisan: liberal in giving public resources to the rich; conservative in giving them to the poor.

● Why is it that money can spread through the economy only downwardly (“trickle down”), never upwardly?

● 8-31-2001:   I heard someone say, “Don’t waste your God-given talents.” Why are talents any more worthwhile or more wrong to waste if they’re given by God than if acquired some other way—from the Devil, from nature, by heredity, by accident, or some way that’s an utter mystery?

● 9-1-2001:   Common sense is, in a way, a misnomer, in that it’s not common. Or, if it is, then, like musical ability, there are degrees of it. I pride myself on my common sense, but I feel I have exotic, rarified common sense.

● What’s so fantastic about a unicorn? It merely combines actual features of existing species of animals: a horse . . . with a horn, as rhinoceroses have. There are many creatures that actually exist that are more fantastic than a unicorn, other than the mere fact that it happens not to exist.

● 9-4-2001:   People are in the habit, when they see someone else in unhappy circumstances, of exclaiming, “There but for the grace of God go I!” This strikes me as a rather presumptuous sentiment, in that it posits that the speaker is the more fortunate man, not by accident, as is ultimately the case, but rather because he somehow deserves it. Why should it be more graceful of God to have given a misfortune to someone else, instead of to you?

● 9-6-2001:   We must remember that the economy is not an independently existing thing, as sometimes politicians and economists would have us believe, but merely the economic status of, and relationships and interactions among, men; and that, to the extent that the economy is an entity, ultimately, the economy is significant, not in itself, but rather only as it affects the well-being of people; and that it exists to serve people, not vice versa. In this sense, the economy is to be distinguished from the culture, for culture might be considered to have some inherent value of a sort. If all life on Earth perished, we might still wish the great works of literature, music, and graphic art to survive; for, if some other intelligent creatures in the universe one day found this material, it might be useful and valuable to them, and it would console us to think that this could happen, that we, our best, might thus live on. But what good would it be for our bank vaults full of money to survive us? . . . When we sent into deep space the Voyager spacecraft, bearing messages from Earth for any beings who might retrieve it, we placed on board some recordings of the music of Bach, not stacks of currency.

● I hope my writing gets a better reception when I’m dead than it’s getting now when I’m alive!

● 9-8-2001:   Parts of Mill’s Utilitarianism that I disagree with seem to me something like wonderfully well written nonsense.

● When I rent movie videos at the video store, I usually rent at least two at a time, so that, if one of them is unwatchable, because of technical problems or because the content is not sufficiently entertaining, I still have another to enjoy.

● A word-cartoon: Two opposing groups of army ants marching toward each other to do battle, and one ant is saying to a comrade, “God is on our side.”

● 9-11-2001:   Sometimes I think lawyers are experts at making the farfetched seem plausible.

● 9-15-2001:   People talk about God as a “higher power.” Presumably they mean higher than man; but in what way is it higher: of higher (intrinsic) value, of greater ability, of greater might?

[Later note (2021): Probably, of greater wisdom.]

[Later note (12-20-2023): No, greater in all those ways.]

● About the terror attacks on 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington, D.C., President George Bush’s characterization of them as evil versus good (the terrorists versus the United States) is ridiculous. The terrorists’ attacks were evil, but it’s not as if the motivation was purely evil, as, say, that of the typical serial murderer, who kills people merely for the pleasure of killing (certainly for no good reason). Rather, the terrorists’ act was a reaction (a very inappropriate reaction) to evil done by this country, such as the support of Israel in oppressing the Palestinians, and the sanctions we impose on Iraq, as a result of which, innocent Iraqis have been dying every day for over a decade—and now our bombing them—to mention but a few of this country’s crimes. (As Auden famously said, “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return.”) In other words, the terror attacks were not evil versus good, but evil versus evil. This country is not the world’s policeman, but the world’s bully. And the anticipated U.S. blunt military response against another country (presumably, Afghanistan) is both wrong and counterproductive: wrong because it will hurt innocent people (even if also some guilty ones), which is the essence of the evil done by the terrorists (angry at the United States government, they struck at the country at large, including many innocent civilians); and counterproductive because, by using the same methods as the terrorists, responding to an evil act with another evil act, it both in effect sanctions the terrorists’ methods, and gives them yet another cause for anger toward us, thereby only encouraging and making more likely further such terror attacks. (Besides which, knowing that our own actions in this regard would be as morally wrong as those of the terrorists, how can we feel any real satisfaction in such revenge?) The United States’ response should instead be threefold: first, to investigate, find, prosecute, and punish those legally responsible for this crime; second, to reduce terrorists’ ability to do harm, by reasonably enhancing security; and, third, to remove potential terrorists’ motives for doing harm, by making our own conduct more just (or less unjust). Bush obviously wants to fight fire with fire. There probably are circumstances in which it’s appropriate to fight fire with fire . . . but usually water works better.

In a similar vein, to identify Islam, or even Muslims, as responsible for this damage, and as our enemy, is illogical. The real connection between Islamic people and the terrorism against the United States is the harm that the United States has done to them. Because committing violence toward others has serious practical and moral implications, anyone who has a motive to violently harm someone else, in deciding whether and how to act on that motive, will probably consult whatever concepts and beliefs are involved in his moral outlook. In the case of many people the world over, those concepts are religious ones, and in the case of many people from the Middle East, that religion happens to be Islam. Just because they find Islamic religious notions and rhetoric in which to couch their justifications for their actions does not mean that Islam is a doctrine of terrorism, or that Muslims, qua Muslims, are terroristic, any more than a Christian’s belief that God is on his side in warfare means that Christianity is a doctrine of war, or that Christians, qua Christians, are belligerent.

As to the call for American citizens to respond to the attack by uniting behind President Bush, and the widespread patriotic display of the American flag on automobiles; I think this is outrageous. It’s the conduct of the United States government, done on behalf of the corporations that keep the so-called leaders in power, which conduct has oppressed the people of the world and this country’s own citizens alike, for which conduct we have thus paid yet again. This event, far from motivating people to give greater support to Bush and his corrupt corporate associates, should galvanize the people to take back control of the government from the corporations, which have done us and the rest of the world so much harm. The saving grace of this tragedy might be if it functions as a wake-up call to the American people—and they wake up. . . . I think that the feeling of unity that many people felt after the disaster was a sudden, unaccustomed feeling of equality. Instantly, rich and powerful people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were dead or injured and (the injured) as disadvantaged as the rest of us, and they needed our help. And many felt flattered.

Right-wing national religious figure Pat Robertson opined that the attack was God’s punishment of the United States for certain conduct on the part of liberals that God dislikes, such as legalization of abortion and the banning of prayer in public schools. I suppose it just shows that there may be elements of truth in even the most outrageous and bizarre statements. The truth in that message is that this country does bear some responsibility for the calamity, but hardly because of the conduct or the people he blames.

● In any disaster, our attention and concern are focused, not on the dead, but rather on the living, the survivors, almost as if the dead, or the ones who died, or their death, was not very important. Millions of people could die and only a few thousand be left; and, if that community of a few thousand were thriving, people would say we’re doing fine, as if the millions of people who had died were dead skin cells washed off of a single conscious organism, skin cells irrelevant to the health and welfare of the organism, rather than co-equal organisms. I suppose that’s how we view society. The currently living community, as it moves through time, is seen as the relevant human organism or entity.

● 9-16-2001:   The idea that “all is illusion” is a wishful belief, in that it allows for the possibility that reality is better than what appears. It could be very depressing to believe that what appears is . . . just what is—all that is; that there’s nothing more.

● I sat down here at the computer to record a thought . . . but I forgot what it was . . ..

● 9-17-2001:   The Buddhist belief that knowledge of eternal truth will enable one to avoid excessive concern for and emotional involvement with the transitory, actual world and therefore avoid suffering, is erroneous. I like to think I’m the perfect counterexample. I believe that I understand eternal, cosmic truth as well as, in fact probably better than, anyone else; and yet I’m still extremely concerned with worldly matters, especially my fame among men (fame for discovery of eternal truths!), and I’m very unhappy.

● 9-18-2001:   Everyone could have a larger share of the world’s resources . . . if there were fewer people. . . . Common people’s quality of life continues to shrink, as the “economy” continues to grow.

● 9-21-2001:   I admire the speech that George W. Bush gave last night. Though I disagree with many positions or points of view he expressed; from a strictly literary viewpoint, I think it was excellent; and I congratulate its author, which obviously was not Bush.

● In general, more of what is desirable or good is preferable to less; and less of what is undesirable or bad is preferable to more.

● People in the United States debate about the motives of the 9-11 terrorists, and more specifically about whether their motives included anger toward the United States for various policies and actions on this country’s part in the Middle East (whence the terrorists apparently originated), like our support of Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinians and our continual starvation and bombing of Iraq. It seems to me that, though we may never know for sure the terrorists’ motives, it makes sense to ponder the question, and to assume that a cause of reasonable grievance against and anger toward the United States among the Middle Eastern multitude might have formed at least part of the terrorists’ motivation; and that removing such causes of grievance against the United States would reduce, if not eliminate, the likelihood of further such terror attacks on us, and to conclude that self-protection is just one more good reason (in addition simply to doing what’s right) for the United States’ ending its unjust and oppressive actions in that part of the world. And I suspect that those so anxious to deny that such may have been part of the terrorists’ motivation take this position because they stand to gain from the U.S. continuing its bad conduct there.

● 9-22-2001:   People—poetic people—often speak of life as a continuing cycle of rebirth, a continual round of seasons, Spring to Summer, Summer to Fall, Fall to Winter, and Winter back to Spring, and on and on and on. But while this may be true of life as a whole, it’s not true of us as individuals. Our life is a finite (and short) arc, which (perhaps at best) starts in Spring, moves through Summer, through Fall, and, in Winter, ends.

● It seems significant that our consciousness remains isolated to us, to our body. We never find ourselves in (or as) some other creature; there’s always just one of us, and always the same one. Which consideration also militates against the possibility, or at least the probability, of so-called reincarnation (if we don’t, if our awareness doesn’t, spring up elsewhere while we’re alive, why should it do so after we die? . . . if our consciousness will arise elsewhere after we die, what is there about our being alive that prevents it from doing so now as well, some cosmic only-one-at-a-time rule?).

● I’ve often had this experience: There may be a very successful celebrity, and I feel that it must be so satisfying to be that person, or in his situation, and I wish I could have his life. Then I hear the news that the celebrity has just died; and I think, Perhaps I wouldn’t really wish to have had his life, after all, because he’s now dead; if I had had his life, I’d be dead now; it would be better to have selected, as an enviable other life to have lived, that of someone who’s still alive and well. And I think, What good does the celebrity’s life—what good does his having lived—do him now? . . . because he’s dead now; now, it’s all the same to him as if he had never lived. What difference does it make (to him) that he once lived?

[Later note (2021): To answer that question, That you once lived, makes no difference to you when you’re dead (there’s no you to make a difference to); it makes a difference to you just when you’re alive.]

[Later note (2-2-2024): Since ultimately we’re dead . . . Ultimately, it makes no difference that we once lived. . . . But now that I’m alive, I want to live, and so I do.]

● Today (Saturday, 9-22-2001), at about 1:00 p.m., on west- (or north-) bound Pacific Coast Highway, in Malibu, just west (or north) of Malibu Canyon Road, another motorist assaulted me with his vehicle, perhaps attempting to run me off the road; I had to swerve to the right to avoid contact with his vehicle, an old, small, dark blue pickup truck, with a tow-knob in the back, license plate number XXXXXXX. I plan to file a criminal complaint against him with the police, for assault (with a motor vehicle) and (at best) reckless driving. He’ll pay for that!

[Later note (3-28-2022): I don’t clearly remember the incident, and perhaps I’m forgetting some details; but rereading my description of it now, twenty-one years later, it occurs to me that the other driver’s movement was more likely accidental.]

● I remember times when I felt bored, and wished to “kill time.” But now I think, if I could somehow go back there, I’d walk around and drink everything in, all the surroundings, I’d appreciate it all, love it all, revel in it. I feel that way about every period in my life, but only years or decades later. Why can’t I have that feeling about my present life?

● 9-23-2001:   I suppose that those who believe in the religious notion of Heaven feel that those who were killed in the terror attack of 11 September 2001 were not really victims, as their death was to their benefit, because it expedited their entry into Heaven.

● All the talk in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terror attack about our heightened need now for religious faith, our need to find God, seems to me quite pathetic; I find it maddening, and I want to shout at them, “You stupid people! ” I want to say to them, Life contradicts your religious beliefs every day, and these events are an even more robust slap to the face of your beliefs, and ask them how religion helps us to deal with such situations, what religion adds. But, of course, I don’t. Their answers are always unsatisfactory, and their lame attempts at explanation seem only to compound their absurdity, and my exasperation. Yet perhaps what’s odd is, not people’s religiousness, but my surprise at it.

● 9-24-2001:   Darwin’s theory of evolution might be thought of as reversing or inverting the traditional religious explanation of life. Christian mythology proposes that the chicken came before the egg, that God gave birth to man, a smaller, simpler reflection of God, the more sophisticated being existing first and producing the less sophisticated one; whereas, evolution posits that the egg, the simpler organism, was first, and grew (evolved) into more complex forms . . . and that man created God (the concept of God).

● Strictly speaking, there’s no inconsistency between religion and the theory of evolution. A religious person could be a brilliant scientist; in fact, such a person would probably have a mind even more amazing than that of most scientists, in its inclusion of an extraordinary capacity for mental gymnastics.

● (The theory of) Evolution was a revolution.

● 9-26-2001:   The United States government’s imminent military attack on Afghanistan in “retaliation” for the 11 September 2001 terror attacks is the societal equivalent of a man, after being yelled at by his boss at work, coming home and kicking the household dog or cat.

● 9-27-2001:   People often are glib about denouncing others as perjurers. But everyone would perjure himself if asked the right questions.

● For man, the mere accidental and arbitrary product of random evolution, which could have produced, and indeed still might produce, and might already have produced, elsewhere, creatures of equal sensitivity and intelligence in any number of other forms, and/or beings of vastly superior sensitivity and intelligence—for man to advance such notions as “the sanctity of human life” and man’s being created in God’s image, with their implication that his (man’s) existence and experience, his pleasure and pain, matters, but that of other sentient beings, even of other intelligent creatures, like apes and whales, does not matter, is outrageous chauvinism, and pathetic self-delusion. From the fact that we happen to be the dominant life form in our little neighborhood in the universe, we leap to the flattering conclusion that we’re somehow a logically necessary, ultimately superior creature. Viewed in this light, religion is not just a leap of faith, but also a leap of pride. It’s no wonder that Darwin was resisted and opposed by so many. A century earlier, he’d have been tortured and killed.

● Evolution is not strictly inconsistent with religion, only with certain particular religious myths, like the Genesis story in the Judeo-Christian Bible. While not strictly inconsistent, evolution and religion, in a broad sense, somehow seem at odds.

[Later note (2021): To elaborate, or clarify, evolution and religion are not strictly inconsistent, because they have different functions: evolutionary theory is a rational, reasoned attempt to literally explain the origin of organisms. Whereas, religion is (non-literal) myth, metaphor. The two become inconsistent when religious myth is put forward as literal explanation.]

● 9-29-2001:   Just for a moment, let’s be serious, and point-blank honest. If you really believed that there was a god who created, or at least assembled, the universe’s contents; that he had unlimited knowledge, power, and ability, and could therefore have created anything at all in any way possible, and yet deliberately created this world as it is—I, for one, would feel great hatred for such a being, and would want to strike at him as the 11 September 2001 terrorists did against the United States.

● 9-30-2001:   It has been said that, though man, like all creatures, is the product of evolution, yet man is the only being that’s aware of this fact. We may now be able to say as well that, while man, like all other creatures, is the result of evolution, man is the solitary one who can deliberately shape and determine, or at least consciously affect, his own future evolution.

● How universal is evolution? We know it’s universal (or global) on Earth, but is it widespread in the universe? (I would think it is.)

● Would the cultural artifacts of an intelligent species, such as our literature and music, be understandable to any other species of at least equal intelligence? (If we [humans] ever go extinct, could something of our civilization potentially live on through our preserved intellectual works?)

● 10-4-2001:   “God bless America” ?? . . . God bless God.

● “Less is more.” What the hell does that mean?? (It means, sometimes smaller is better.) Or it could mean, Less bad is more good . . ..

● 10-5-2001:   In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks, certain rich celebrities have been lauded for donating money to help the country recover from the devastation (actress Julia Roberts, for example, donated two million dollars). At the same time, President Bush has proposed, purportedly to counteract the economic recession exacerbated by those attacks, another large tax cut, and various other government subsidies—for the wealthy! Thus, to help the country heal from the catastrophe; on one hand, we praise the rich giving money to the public; whereas, Bush proposes giving public money to the rich. But Bush has also, as a means to fight the worsened recession, urged people to spend money. Why, then, don’t we instead do this: raise taxes for the wealthy, who don’t really need the money, and who therefore would not necessarily spend any additional funds they get, and give that tax money to the poor, who do need it, and who therefore would spend it. Which would have the double advantage, first, directly, of aiding those who have been most seriously hurt by the disaster (the poor), and, second, indirectly, of more effectively helping the overall economy by causing greater private spending.

● 10-7-2001:   Some have cited the widespread presence of religion in cultures around the world as evidence of the truth of religious doctrine. Of course, I disagree (I acknowledge that religion is widespread, but deny either that religious beliefs are true or that religion’s ubiquity argues for its truth). I think it’s more accurate to view religion simply as a form of mythmaking, the tendency of people to create stories accounting for how the world or certain things in it came to be, such as “How the leopard got its spots” or the story of Pandora’s Box. No one, I think, would seriously argue that all of these accounts are literally true, some of which stories, moreover, are logically inconsistent with one another (which means that some are false).

● The news media have just announced the start of the United States’ long-anticipated military attack on Afghanistan. I had planned to watch certain educational programs on television today (including, by interesting coincidence, ones on the history of Islam), but decided that I would instead watch and listen to the news on the unfolding military operations and related events. It then occurred to me, however, that my urge to do so was motivated, not by a wish to be educated on current political events, in order to be able to participate more effectively as a citizen of this country and of the world, or even by a desire for education in the abstract or as an aid to my writing, but instead merely by my need for excitement and entertainment, the same urge that moves a motorist to slow down and gawk at the aftermath of a traffic collision, which tendency I purport to disdain. So I took myself in hand and stuck to my original plan to view the educational programs. (I realize that the same is true of my consumption of the news generally, which is a major source of my time-wasting. I should be spending my time instead viewing or listening to educational material.)

● I hate George W. Bush and the other right-wingers; if they do anything good, it’s purely by accident . . . in the course of their attempt to benefit themselves financially.

● 10-9-2001:   On political dissent: Many people now are attempting to discourage public dissent, saying that in this crisis we must all rally round the President. But if you had an old car that you loved, would you not want to fix it, restore it to its best condition? And if it were being driven recklessly or abusively, would you not try to change that? If you had a friend you loved, who was very enthusiastic about pursuing some course of action that he found very gratifying, such as abusing drugs, but which you thought would in the long run be counterproductive for him, would you not, out of your love for him, attempt to stop him, even though you might incur his immediate anger? (whereas, someone who didn’t care as much would take the easier, more convenient, less unpleasant course, and keep quiet).

● 10-10-2001:   I got a job!! . . . a full-time job as a workers’ compensation lawyer, with KLEIN, TESTAN & BRUNDO. They’ll provide thorough training, my starting salary will be $45,000 a year, with full benefits, including a 401K plan, medical, dental, life and disability insurance, etc. I start Monday, 15 October 2001.

● 10-11-2001:   Here’s an idea for a poster: A large photograph of the New York World Trade Towers ablaze, immediately after the 9-11-2001 strikes, perhaps with the fireball coming out of the side of the second tower struck . . . with the sentence printed over the photo, in the bottom half of the picture: ‘ “In God we trust.” ?? ’ . . .

● 10-12-2001:   In the great scheme of things, every creature is exactly as fortunate as every other; each is born, lives a brief moment, experiences a little pleasure, a little pain, then dies. Thus, in a cosmic, ultimate sense, there is justice; and peace. Everlasting life would subject sentient beings to the prospect of eternal torture. As illogical as it may be, most people (and I) would probably give priority to the avoidance of pain over the acquisition of pleasure. Universal death, though disappointing to our dream of eternal good life, is, at last, merciful, insurance against the unthinkable.

● 10-13-2001:   It seems the evolution of species on Earth has proceeded from simpler life forms to more complex ones. Why has the direction been from simple to complex? Does the process happen in reverse, such as an ape evolving from man? How likely, and under what circumstances, would such reverse evolution occur?

● I use images or metaphors or analogies in my arguments. But the argument’s essence is not the image but the underlying logic, which is the skeleton; the metaphors are the flesh, which, not necessary to the argument’s basic soundness, make it easier to relate to and more beautiful. They’re the paint on the surface of the sculpture.

● Life on Earth is, on balance, miserable. Happiness is far outweighed by unhappiness. And yet, God, the purported creator and grand superintendent of the universe, is supposed to be all knowing, all powerful, and all good. . . . The human mind works in mysterious ways.

● For a long time, I agonized over the mystery of how the universe and its contents came to be. But I’ve had a marvelous revelation that has fully answered the question and put my mind at rest: the universe was created by seven great elves.

● 10-14-2001:   Tomorrow I start my new job. This promises to open a new chapter—nay, a new volume—in my life. This is my very first real job, one that’s serious and solid, with thorough training to function at a high professional level, with a large, successful organization, with prospects for a full-time, long-term career position. All my other jobs until now have been as an independent contractor: temporary, low-level, and low-paying—in short, junk jobs. I’ll work hard to do well, to learn, and to master this area of the law, so that I can become a compleat workers’ compensation lawyer, and thus an asset to both my employer and myself. Then I can earn a decent living and, able to command higher pay, maximize my leisure time . . . and my writing.

[Later note (2-10-2024): Of the four traits I mention of a junk job, the only one that’s necessarily bad is the low paying. A low-level independent contractor job would be fine if it was high paying. Temporary would be all right if you had a series of them . . . or, again, if the pay was high enough.]

● Why should praying to God be effective (not merely in psychologically helping the person who prays, by virtue of the simple act of praying, but in moving God to fulfill the prayer)? For example, if you pray for God to heal a sick friend; if your friend is deserving of God’s help in recovering from the illness, and if God is all knowing, and therefore knows well all the circumstances concerning the ill person and his deserving recovery, why should God not help your friend on His own initiative, without your intercession?

Of course, an even more basic question is this: if your friend deserves health, and God exists and is all knowing and all powerful and (as the idea of prayer presupposes) intervenes to affect circumstances on Earth, why did God have (or let) your friend become ill to begin with? If God created everything, and is all powerful and all good, why did He not simply create a world without injustice or suffering?

● 10-20-2001:   It’s interesting how people sometimes focus on one good element in a bad situation, and use the one good fact to (mis)characterize the overall event. For example, if a man has a serious car crash but is saved from more severe injury by wearing his seatbelt, which he did for the first time on the day of the crash, he may exclaim that this was a lucky day for him (because he was spared more serious injury); and yet, in a larger sense, it was an unlucky day for him, simply because he had a crash at all, which doesn’t usually happen to him, or to most others.

● 10-21-2001:   A nurse in the intensive care unit told his patient that he (the nurse) could grant the patient any wish the patient had. The patient replied that he wished to be happy for the rest of his life, whereupon the nurse, delivering on his promise, administered the patient a fatal dose of morphine.

● 10-24-2001:   President Bush touts the United States’ “freedom”; but what the Bush administration means by freedom is the freedom to shop, not the freedom to criticize the government (explicitly urging the former, and warning against the latter).

● 10-28-2001:   People who put themselves in danger in public service, like soldiers, are often praised for their bravery, self-sacrifice, and (especially if they die) their willingness to give their lives for others. Several comments. First, most such people are not necessarily giving their lives, but merely risking them; and the foreseeable risk may not be very great. If soldiers knew that it was certain, or even likely, that they would die or be badly injured, many fewer might be willing to go to war, or enter the military. Second, those who suffer the most when a warrior or other service person is killed is, not the one killed, but rather his friends and relatives. While the soldier may die quickly, even instantly, never again feeling pain, his friends and family suffer considerably, grieving over and coping with his loss for the rest of their (possibly quite long) lives. And when, for a chance at glory, the soldier risks, not only his own life and limb, but also the welfare of so many others, whose aggregate suffering in the event of his death or serious injury would vastly outweigh his own, but whose gain from his heroic act would be small, we might well ask if his decision to risk his life, far from being selfless, is not downright selfish; and if the real heroes are, not the warriors, but the others in their lives.

● 10-29-2001:   When people posit an alternative definition of God, such as “God is love”; they’re not so much redefining God as proposing a substitute for God. They’re not saying, “I believe in God, and this is how I conceive of Him,” but rather, “I do not believe in God, but I believe that something exists which possesses one of the qualities or characteristics that people attribute to God (and for the sake of which quality we like to believe in God): namely, some positive, friendly force in the universe, or at least in the world . . . which is (for example) love, the better side of man’s nature, our concern for and inclination to care for and help one another. . . . It’s almost as if to say, God doesn’t exist, but the next best thing does.

● 11-4-2001:   “If we fail to learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it.” At first glance (and people rarely get beyond a first glance) it sounds wise. But I’m not sure how much sense it makes. What would it mean to repeat history? To reinvent certain inventions, like the wheel? Is not “history” simply people living their lives? And is this not in essence simply what continues to happen: people, new generations of people, living their lives? And if we lived through a particularly happy time, should we avoid learning from history, so as to repeat that happy time? . . ..

[Later note (2021): Probably the quote is a fancy way of saying that learning about our mistakes helps us to avoid making similar mistakes. And avoiding similar mistakes helps us to make fewer mistakes overall, because avoiding any mistakes—whichever ones they are—means fewer mistakes.]

● 11-9-2001:   When you feel distressed because you’re having an unproductive day, it may help to bear in mind that you have to get through the rough or unproductive periods in order to get to the better times . . ..

● 11-10-2001:   We experience dying. As to death itself, however, though we undergo death, we never experience death, because death is non-experience, the lack of experience.

● 11-11-2001:   Whether you should act on your urge to have the last word in an argument or quarrel depends in part on whether you’re right. If you’re wrong, it would be foolish to insist on having the last word. Instead, you should cut your losses and be quiet.

● 11-13-2001:   Death is neither good nor bad. As no-experience, it stands precisely at the neutral point, midway between good experience and bad experience.

● 11-19-2001:   Does God have a personality?

● Finish this thought: Sometimes a small internal (mental) change can result in a large external (behavioral) change, as when you’re evenly divided inwardly as to whether you should take a shortcut by walking on the grass, and decide not to; but then you see someone you respect do it, and the close inward balance of pros and cons is thereby tipped (a small change) and you decide to start walking on the grass (a larger, outward change).

● 11-26-2001:   In Workers’ Compensation Law there are certain terms of art, rating disabilities on a pain-level scale: “slight,” “minimal,” “moderate,” “severe,” and so forth, to be determined by the injured worker’s treating physician. How does a doctor determine his patient’s pain level? Strictly speaking, he can’t, since it’s ultimately subjective; and, while the fact of pain is theoretically objective (a being actually has whatever level of pain he’s experiencing), there is in practice no way that we can determine how different people’s pain compares. We can probably guess pretty well in a rough, gross way. The man writhing on the ground and screaming or moaning is probably experiencing more pain than one who, walking and talking animatedly, pauses and comments, “If this headache gets much worse, I may have to take some aspirin.” But we can never know for sure, and fine distinctions or precise categorizations are particularly difficult and unreliable.

● “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . .” Is the notion of God essential to this proposition?

[Later note (2020): How might I rewrite that to omit the notion of God, and other fallacious notions?: “We hold that all people should be treated equally before the law, that they should be accorded the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” That’s more precise, but much less poetic! A further question might be whether incorporating religious notions in an idea’s expression is justified by its greater poeticalness.]

[Later note (2021): To clarify, that later question is not a question of social policy, but a question of style for the writer.]

● 11-29-2001:   Perfectionism can be counterproductive: You don’t necessarily catch more fish with a golden fishhook than with an iron one. And iron ones are much easier to replace!

● In practice, many people’s ethical doctrines are at least partly a function of self-interest. For example, we do unto others as we would have others do unto us (the Golden Rule), not only for the sake of others, but also because we’re aware that, by operation of the Golden Rule, or of some practical corollary to it, others will treat us as we treat them. For this reason, whether our moral outlook includes lower animals (in addition to man) is affected by our belief or disbelief in reincarnation. That is, we’re more likely to favor kindness to other animals if we think we might someday exist as such an animal, since, in that case, human treatment of other creatures could affect us directly and (so to speak) personally.

● 11-30-2001:    Could God end His own existence, commit suicide? Assuming that God exists, if He ceased to exist, how would the world be different? Would we notice a difference? In what way?

● 12-7-2001:   If everything is a high priority, nothing is a high priority.

[Later note (2021): I wonder if that’s true. Imagine this: a man has four tasks he wants to do, and he assigns each a different priority. His friend visits him and sets about to help him with the tasks. The friend thinks that all four tasks are very important and so completes all four by the end of the day. Did their all getting done quickly not mean that they were all a high priority? Whereas, had they all been a low priority, he might have put them off for a long time? On second thought, no: priority is a relative concept. If you can complete all of a certain set of tasks quickly, you don’t need to prioritize them. Prioritization presupposes a need to allocate scarce resources like time and energy among various uses.]

[Later note (3-27-2024): If you do all four of those tasks today, you may not have prioritized them relative to one another, but you’ve (implicitly) prioritized them relative to all the other tasks you need to do.]

[Later note (11-3-2024): Not necessarily: Perhaps you did those four tasks today because you enjoyed doing them, and you procrastinated doing other tasks which were difficult or unpleasant, though you thought they had a higher priority.]

● 12-10-2001:   Most people interpret “the meaning of life” as the meaning of human life. We can therefore perhaps gain some insight into the issue by considering the question, Why should human life have any different, greater, inherent meaning than, say, chimpanzee life?

● 12-23-2001:   The difference between psychoses and neuroses is a little like that between felonies and misdemeanors, a dichotomy based on the degree of severity; not to imply a psychological element to crime, or a criminal or moral element to mental illness.

[Later note (2020): No, there’s a qualitative difference between psychosis and neurosis. It’s not just a matter of degree: A neurosis is an irrational or counterproductive mental or behavioral tendency; the sufferer may even be aware of the problem. But a psychosis is a breakdown of one’s perception of reality.]

● In philosophy there are two opposing views about experience. One school of thought holds that the experience is distinct from the experiencer; the other school contends that the experience and the experiencer are one. I’m with the former, which position is supported by the consideration that affecting the experiencer (his getting intoxicated, for example) can affect the experience. Even more fundamental is the observation that there is no experience without an experiencer: if there were no experiencers—if they all suddenly died—there would be no experience. An experience is experienced by a distinct subject. It makes a difference who is having it. Several millennia ago, when Socrates was alive, I was not; and whatever experience Socrates was having was being enjoyed by him and not by me. Now that I’m alive and Socrates is not, I’m having experience, and Socrates is having none. The experience’s content could be identical, but be had by different people (or sentient beings). We might envision it as a recording of a piece of music. It’s the same music, and may produce the same emotional/esthetic effect in a listener, but the listener’s identity changes. I may be hearing it, or you may be. To whom the experience occurs, who has it, seems a significant fact, or component, or dimension of experience. Imagine that a luxury vacation was being raffled, and I won it and you didn’t. Would you feel satisfied, that there was no difference which of us received it, on the grounds that the experience and the experiencer are one, that it’s the same experience whether enjoyed by you or by me? I suspect not; I suspect that you would feel disappointed . . . (. . . Conscious . . . Conscious of . . .)

● 12-25-2001:   It’s Christmas day, late in the afternoon, and I feel oddly hopeful. Having passed the winter solstice, the days will now progressively lengthen. Coming up from the depths of coldness and dark, we now inexorably move toward warmth and light. January is just a week away: a new year, a new start. And January is the month which immediately precedes February. And February is the month immediately preceding March. And March, of course, is the month just before April: Spring!

● 12-26-2001:   Since the 9-11-2001 terror attacks in the United States, the phrase “God bless America” has been very popular. But where was God on 9-11-2001? Was God “blessing America” on September 11^th? Will saying “God bless America” make God bless America, or make Him do so to any greater degree, than He would have done otherwise? Is He taking a poll, counting the numbers? If a certain minimum number say it, He’ll do it; otherwise, He’ll think better of it?

Besides, what does “God bless America” mean? Is it an entreatment to God to bless the United States, and not the rest of the world? Who in the United States? (the good people, and not the bad people?). Or is it a request to bless the whole world (universe?), but the United States especially, a little extra? And how are U.S. citizens to be helped? That the good citizens all get a new car, or a new computer (perhaps that really cool, new laptop model made by Microsoft!)?, and the bad U.S. citizens lose one of their possessions? Or perhaps simply the good citizens would get a pay raise at work (or, if they’re unemployed—assuming an unemployed person could be considered good—a job); and the bad citizens, if employed, get a pay cut or lose their job (if it’s a good job . . . if it’s a bad job, that they keep it); or, if the bad person is unemployed, that it take him a week longer to find work, or that he get a bad job; or that the good U.S. citizens’ lives be lengthened by a day, the bad ones’ lives be shortened by a day (if they’re happy—if they’re unhappy, that the good citizens’ lives be shortened, the bad ones’ lives lengthened)?; or that the good U.S. citizens should all have a little more energy?; the bad ones a little less?; that the good citizens have a little more happiness (if they’re already happy, or a little less misery, if they’re miserable); the bad ones a bit less happiness, if they’re happy, a little more misery if they’re miserable?; that the good have a little more health if they’re healthy, a little less illness if they’re ill; and the bad a little less health if they’re well, a bit more sickness if they’re ill?

● 12-28-2001:   A positive attitude is often encouraged as more conducive to various desiderata, such as health and success. A simpler advantage of a positive attitude may be overlooked, which is that it’s a more pleasant feeling than a negative attitude. In other words, a positive attitude is valuable to us, not merely as a means to other ends, but also as an end in itself.

● 12-30-2001:   It has occurred to me why we’re almost always disappointed upon meeting a celebrity. It’s because we know the celebrity by the famous accomplishment which made us aware of him, which special accomplishment is probably the best, most noteworthy aspect of him. When you meet the man, you’re confronted with a whole person, and the aspects of that person which outwardly appear to you are inevitably the less exceptional aspects. For example, if you meet a famous singer, you’re confronted with him when he’s just speaking, not when he’s singing (and he’s famous for his singing, not necessarily for his conversation). Moreover, even if the celebrity is famous for an aspect of himself which may be manifested in conversation, as in the case of a writer or philosopher; nonetheless, his writings are the best, most concentrated, polished distillate of his thinking and speaking. The conversation that you experience on any given random encounter is bound to be a very poor, diluted form of the thought and expression that’s gathered in his writings. And if you meet the famous person when he’s older, he may be past his prime, during which he produced his greatest work, the work by which you know him. (. . . It shouldn’t surprise us that the celebrity doesn’t look as we imagined him from perceiving his work, for, if he did, we would be able, so to speak, to judge a book by its cover, which we know we can’t do . . . Though we shouldn’t be too surprised at the way the celebrity looks; after all, he has to look like something . . . Or perhaps the disappointment comes, not so much from the person looking different than we’d imagined, as it does from his appearance at all: that is, we tend to think of one we greatly admire as somehow more than human, an image contradicted by his in-person appearance, which confronts us with the inescapable awareness that he’s merely human.)

We sometimes encounter the opposite situation, wherein we’re very impressed with someone we know personally, and are surprised that he’s not famous. There may be many reasons for his lack of fame. Perhaps he hasn’t sought fame, or perhaps he hasn’t managed to put his impressive content into a form that lends itself to public dissemination.

● When I’m on a diet and I eat a small morsel, the last mouthful seems the most delicious, probably because I know it’s the last one, and so I savor it more. And then I inwardly scold myself for not having been more attentive or appreciative when eating the rest of the snack, so as to have gotten as much enjoyment from every bite as I did from the last one.

● I’ve always found parades and magic shows especially uninteresting and boring.

2002 >>