2010
● 1-1-2010: A look back and ahead. Highlights of 2009: On the positive side, I perfected my proof of the impossibility of God, “The Impossibility of Knowledge, Free Will, and God,” which I posted on the World Wide Web, with various other philosophical works (the Philosophy in Los Angeles website). I also revised and posted on the same website my piece on reincarnation (“Life After Death”). These are two of my very finest works. Either would have been sufficient accomplishment for a year. Businesswise, I found out that I lacked a critically important domain name (1-800-sue-them.com), and successfully acquired it. As well, I created and posted on the Web the 1-800-SUE-THEM.com website. For about six months, I partnered with my old boss, Attorney Sef Krell, for 1-800-SUE-THEM. Further, over the last four months, I’ve radically reworked my resume, which I’ve posted on the Web, and created a related website, RichardEisner.com. And I’ve drastically rewritten my resume cover letter. The net result is a revolution in my job-search tools and strategy. The advance in these respects is so great, I can hardly believe it took only four months.
On the negative side, my health suffered a bit. Specifically, my hearing in both ears declined, in the high frequency range: an especially significant loss, given the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual importance to me of classical music. I apply the structures I hear in music to my writing. There was another health decline, too. Worst of all, perhaps, my father, Jerry’s health seems to be deteriorating rapidly. He’s been supporting me, and I feel as if I’m in a race with time, for my very survival. This is now my great challenge, my great project.
● 1-2-2010: To thoroughly refute an argument, you don’t have to thoroughly understand it; it’s enough to understand one fatal flaw in it.
[Later note (2021): But it would seem that, to find a fatal flaw in it, you must have some understanding of the argument as a whole, in order to understand the argument’s point, and the flaw’s essentiality to it.]
● 1-18-2010: When you feel discouraged, proceed this way: Feel however you want. But act as though you had a fighting chance . . . and fight!
● 2-18-2010: If I had to pick a human trait underlying our sense of morality, I think better candidates than rationality (which Kant proposes) would be empathy and compassion. (Rationality merely tells you of the logical relationships among propositions; it doesn’t motivate you to act.)
● 2-21-2010: In a sense, changing one thing changes everything; and a thing’s explanation includes everything that preceded it.
● Philosophy Club meeting; topic: “To what Extent does Evolution Explain Human Nature?”
● Plato’s forms; how can there be an abstract form for the chair?, one of Plato’s examples of a form, since the chair exists only in relation to the human anatomy, a contingent product of evolution.
● My speculation on how evolution might explain the incest taboo: Those groups of proto humans which tended to make their instinctual revulsion at incest into a moral rule had their tendency to avoid incest reinforced, and so tended to avoid incest to an even greater extent, which made them even stronger genetically and more likely to survive, compared with groups having a less strongly reinforced revulsion toward incest.
● 3-1-2010: In my heart of hearts . . . I’m ambivalent.
● 3-21-2010: I believe in truth, but not in knowledge.
● Alan Watts argues for toleration essentially this way: All is good, or perfect, or as it should be. (Sounds as if he took a lot of LSD.) Therefore, various, even conflicting, thoughts and opinions make for a desirable richness of philosophy, a garden with a glorious variety of flowers, not containing merely a profusion of what we might deem to be the best or most beautiful flower, which collectively would be monotonous. While I agree with Watts’s conclusion favoring toleration, his argument is flawed: desirable cultural variety does not require a mixture of superior and inferior works. A rich variety of superb works is possible, and is better than a collection of works of mixed quality. For example, there’s just as much variety, and higher overall quality, in a set of three compositions that includes one by Mozart, one by Bach, and one by Beethoven, than in a set of three including one by Mozart, one by Vivaldi, and one by Brahms.
● The so-called paradox of toleration is illusory: Toleration asks us, not to tolerate the intolerable, but merely to tolerate the tolerable.
● 3-22-2010: In a sense, to some extent, to wish to be a good person is, ipso facto, to be a good person; to wish to be kindhearted is, ipso facto, to be kindhearted. On the other hand, to be a good person is to treat others well, which requires action, beyond mere good will. But even there, to feel remorse for your bad conduct, is at least somewhat better than to feel no remorse for it. When I realize that I’ve accidentally hurt someone, I feel remorse; sometimes I feel it for years, even decades.
● 3-25-2010: Since the loss of the great bulk of my writing and all of my graphic art in 1983; in recent years, I’ve come to view my glass as half full rather than half empty. More significant, I’m starting to appreciate the amount of the proverbial liquid I’ve accumulated—it’s considerable, and continually growing.
● 4-1-2010: Nothing enhances energy like a good mood.
● 4-6-2010: I won an unlawful detainer (eviction) trial for a defendant today, with John Edwards as an expert witness. This was a milestone.
● 4-10-2010: When I read philosophical discussions about epistemic certainty, I’m in the strange position of hearing a concept analyzed which I think is impossible, or nonsensical. In these cases, I feel it’s rather a waste of my time and mental energy to go to the trouble of learning or coming to “understand” in depth such concepts . . . as long as I understand the idea well enough to prove its impossibility. Once I’ve accomplished that, I feel I can sit back and relax, without having to do any further intellectual work on it.
● 4-18-2010: Every man knows at least a portion of reality: he knows his perception, and his perception is a part of the world, of which he therefore knows at least that much.
● 4-28-2010: Today, I viewed the family house in West Hills with Muriel Levin (our real estate agent) and my father, Jerry Eisner, in preparation for selling it.
● Poem remembered:
A row of streetlights, each with its own swarm of moths.
If two poems give us the same sensations, like spine chills, does it matter which one we read?
● 4-30-2010: I recently heard a professor of religion say that the central problem that Christianity addresses is sin. I think not. It seems to me that the Christian’s purpose involves, not sin, but pleasure; that his overriding goal is the avoidance of eternal pain (Hell) and the acquisition of eternal pleasure (Heaven), and that overcoming or dealing with sin is merely a means to that end. Which implies that the Christian is essentially selfish: he’s ultimately concerned, not with mankind’s pleasure and pain (a la utilitarianism), but with his own.
[Later note (1-11-2022): That latter conclusion perhaps doesn’t follow. It could be argued that the Christian proselytizes to benefit others, to save them from Hell and give them the benefit of Heaven.]
[Later note (2-25-2022): And yet, utilitarianism promises the adherent no happiness for adopting it. Whereas, the religious doctrine of Heaven does promise the adherent a personal happiness reward for adopting it, so that the Heaven idea (but not utilitarianism) lends itself to being adopted for selfish reasons.]
● Sleep experts say that, when you can’t sleep, don’t just lie in bed—get up and do an activity (except watching television). I concur, not only because it aids sleep, but, also, and I think more important, because it’s better use of your time. If you’re working, even if you’d rather be sleeping, at least you’re getting something done; whereas, lying awake in bed, neither sleeping nor working nor enjoying yourself, is essentially a total waste of that time.
● 5-13-2010: Most persons would concur with the proposition that people should be more open-minded, but they think it pertains only to those who disagree with them.
● If an orange is orange, why isn’t a banana a “yellow”?
● 5-14-2010: I used to take pride in individual sentences I wrote. Now, I take pride in works, sometimes even paragraphs, but rarely single sentences.
● I’m in a fight for my very survival, the fight of my life. And yet, this is so only because I’ve won all the other serious fights, survived all the other crises, up till now. There’s some encouragement in so viewing it.
● 5-16-2010: On 3 February 2006, I wrote (above): “Anti-abortion and pro-choice people have at least one common issue, though in opposite directions. Each must decide where to draw the line within the nine months’ pregnancy. The pro-choice advocate must decide how late in gestation abortion should be forbidden or restricted; and the anti-abortionist must decide how early in that period abortion should be allowed. And it would seem that each must be willing to draw a line somewhere, or lose credibility.”
I’ve changed my mind. I think that the reasons I expressed in my piece “For the Right to Abortion” justify a woman’s right to choose abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
. . . Though a woman’s right to control her body gives her an absolute right to abort a fetus, it’s not absolute for all purposes in this context; the fetus, as a potential person, has an absolute right as against the mother not to be mistreated so long as it lives in the mother’s womb. In other words, a woman has a right to kill her child in the womb, but not a right to mistreat it such that it would be irreparably harmed after it’s born.
The possession by the conceptus of a soul would seem to argue in favor of, not against, the right to abortion. If, as religion teaches, the soul is eternal, the person’s death, before or after birth, is not really death, since it does not end the soul, the—eternal—human spiritual essence.
● 5-29-2010: For me, the big question about God is, not whether God exists. I’ve proven, at least to my own satisfaction, that God is impossible. The real question, instead, is: For what is God a metaphor?
● 5-31-2010: On this Memorial Day, several observations on the notion of soldiers’ giving their lives for their country. First, a double standard operates here. When enemy fighters blow themselves up in a war with the United States (a war that takes place in their country), they’re described as “suicide bombers,” a term with vaguely ignoble connotations. Whereas, if an American soldier does the equivalent, the government gives him a medal, and praises him as a hero for giving his life, for making the ultimate sacrifice, for the cause of freedom, or some such noble-sounding words. Second, in most cases, the soldier who dies does not give his life, but instead merely risks it. Fewer soldiers would perform acts of heroism if they believed that their consequent death was virtually assured (as the “suicide bomber” does know). Third, the soldier does not risk or sacrifice his life, simpliciter; rather, he risks or gives part of his life—the remainder of it. Fourth, and finally, the soldier may act for a selfish purpose. For example, his life may be empty; he may feel that the risk of death or injury is worth the possibility of becoming recognized as a hero.
On a related note, persons join the military, not (generally) to serve their country (as is so often proclaimed), but simply because they can’t find a decent job; they enter the military as the only way to survive economically, for lack of any other viable option.
[Later note (2021): For some, the most effective way they can “serve their country” is just to pay their taxes. Yet some who roar the loudest about serving one’s country are among those who most assiduously seek to avoid, or minimize, the taxes they pay.]
● 6-12-2010: I think both moral objectivism and moral relativism are incorrect. I am, rather, a moral subjectivist. I think moral judgments and prescripts are not objectively true or false, let alone absolutely true or false. This position’s rightness would not be altered even if everyone agreed as to what was moral and immoral, any more than everyone’s preferring ice cream to broccoli would make it a fact, much less a metaphysical truth, that ice cream is better than broccoli . . ..
It’s been argued that certain fundamental elements of human nature, certain universal human needs, impose constraints on (all) moral systems, in which respect, to which extent, morality may therefore be considered objective. But what if our flourishing is detrimental to other species, to the Earth? What if non-human aliens with superior intelligence and culture, and different needs and values, took up residence on Earth? What if our welfare, in cosmic terms, is insignificant? Is what’s good for us, then, objectively good? Would every person’s preferring ice cream to broccoli make it a fact, let alone a metaphysical truth, that ice cream is better than broccoli?
[Later note (2021): The first sentence of the first paragraph of this entry is off: I say I think moral relativism is incorrect, and that I agree, rather, with moral subjectivism. But one meaning of moral relativism is subjectivism. So, to that extent, I do agree with moral relativism.]
● Interesting that the Ten Commandments prohibits coveting, but not raping.
● 6-21-2010: Just as one of the profound mysteries of the cosmos is why there is something rather than nothing; one of the great mysteries of human nature is why we wish to be, rather than not to be. Of course, there’s an evolutionary, if not a spiritual, explanation: only those creatures with a survival instinct survive.
● 6-24-2010: In ethics, there’s wider emphasis on the avoidance of harm than on the conferring of benefit. I believe this reflects the simple fact that it’s far easier to hurt than to help. I can go out now and instantly give someone, or many, a devastating, life-altering injury. But it’s not clear that I could significantly improve anyone’s life, much less many persons’ lives, even with intense and sustained effort, let alone with little effort. It may also have something to do with our feeling that the avoidance or relief of pain should take precedence over the effecting or enhancement of pleasure.
● 6-27-2010: The epigram, attributed to Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing but expecting a different result” strikes me as inane. One problem with it is that it fails to provide any guidance on when the action in question should be changed, if indeed it should be changed at all, or in what ways. More basically, it just seems wrong. It conflicts with another (seemingly sound) maxim: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Sometimes an action must be repeated numerous times to bear fruit. For example, in a job search, you must typically contact numerous potential employers before you find a job. The job seeker does not necessarily continually modify the job search techniques until he finds one that works; rather, he must simply approach a sufficient number of prospective employers. He wouldn’t go on three job interviews and not get a job, and, based on the epigram, go to the next job interview drunk, on the basis that he went to the first three sober, and if he keeps doing what he’s been doing (going to job interviews sober), he’ll continue to get the same result (no job).
● 7-4-2010: At my house, June is June bug month. Actually, they’re not true June bugs. I just call them that because they appear every June. I have mixed feelings about them. They are pests, but I do enjoy killing them.
● 7-18-2010: A news report speaking of racehorses as athletes prompted me to wonder (or to wonder aloud) whether a racehorse understands the object of the game and is knowingly participating in it: that is, whether it knows that it’s engaged in a running competition with the other horses on the track, and is attempting to beat them to the finish line. (My own impression is that we mistakenly impute the jockey’s understanding to the horse. But I wonder what the psychological state of the horse is in a race—what its motivation is in running in such a way as to appear to be racing.)
● 7-24-2010: I might be more open to the conservative argument for retaining existing institutions were it not for my observation that the institutions that conservatives favor are ones that benefit them, at the expense of the rest of us.
● 8-4-2010: There may be a long time between the present and the proverbial end of the day, during which time much evil can be done.
● 8-15-2010: Why does God get to live forever, but we don’t? And we have to beg His forgiveness for practically everything we do. While He arranged it that way—He should beg our forgiveness!
● 8-22-2010: The Gabinkabish and the Gippergoose make a good team.
● 9-2-2010: To fight for racial justice but not economic justice is to say that the downtrodden should be a racially proportionate group. To fight for economic justice is to say that no one should be downtrodden.
● 9-4-2010: A Hypothetical Rebuttal to Judith Thompson’s People Seed Argument:
A people seed is analogous to a fetus. A fetus has a right to life that should be recognized. Therefore, a people seed has a right to life that should be recognized.
● 9-6-2010: On Saturday, 28 August 2010, my father, 92, was following me, driving in another car to the auto repair shop, and he rearended me! I’ve had increased back pain since then. He shouldn’t be driving.
● 9-8-2010: Today is a red-letter day. My father signed over to me his half interest in the family house (which is now up for sale).
● 9-12-2010: Am I an Aristotelian?, a Platonist?, a Marxist? No. I’m an Eisnerist.
● 9-21-2010: Questions to a Buddhist: If you could be happier unenlightened than enlightened, would you still seek enlightenment? If it was within your power to enhance the enlightenment, happiness, and well-being of another (or of many others) by reducing, nullifying, or reversing your own enlightenment, would you do so?
● 9-23-2010: In America, you have the freedom to do great things. And everyone else has the freedom not to notice.
● 9-26-2010: To expect a populace to “learn” from its experience, say, politically, is a bit fallacious. Unlike an individual, a single consciousness, who, through time, accumulates experiences and memories, and lessons derived from them (and so, at least until he suffers a brain catastrophe, gains wisdom), a group is composed of numerous individuals; as time goes on, the older, presumably wiser, members die, and new ones with very little understanding are born and take their place, so that the identity of the individuals changes, but the group’s overall composition, the length of its collective memory for actually lived-through events, and the extent of the wisdom gleaned therefrom, remains constant.
[Later note (1-1-2023): This contrasts to a systematic field of knowledge, like science or mathematics, which, as time goes on, does advance.]
● Nothing (not anything) is inherently beautiful (or ugly). Human art is beautiful only relative to the human mind. If the human brain changed significantly, it’s unlikely that we would appreciate now-existing art. There could theoretically be intelligent beings that don’t appreciate human handiwork. And yet, that said, thus qualified; within a certain realm, the beauty, the greatness, of certain art seems objective.
● 10-2-2010: My father, Jerome Eisner, cashed in his stock ($13, 500) and today gave me $18,000.00 (the rest was already in his bank account). This will help ensure my survival, which before this was very uncertain.
● 10-10-2010: My moral philosophy can be broadly dichotomized thus: First, the (objective) observation that ethical precepts are subjective; and, second, my own (subjective) ethical precepts or views.
● 10-15-2010: To live just “in the present,” “in the now,” is both unnatural and unwholesome, if not wholly illusory. We must act with a view of the future, so that our lives will remain good, or improve. We may not enjoy doing our lessons or brushing our teeth; but we do it, to maintain our health and foster our future accomplishment and well-being. And meditation on our future enjoyments and achievements enhances our pleasure in the present; it gives us a sense of hope, of excitement, of anticipation, of purpose—something to look forward to. Likewise, contemplation of our past failures allows us to learn from our mistakes, so as to do better now; and the memory of our successes lets us learn from them; makes us feel good; and inspires us to strive for further accomplishment. Our aim should be, not to eliminate one or more of our temporal consideration modes, but to properly balance them.
● It seems to make no sense to “live every day as if it were your last”—unless, of course, you believe it actually will be your last (or that you have only a very short time left to live). If I truly believed that every day were my last day, I would get nothing done, for it wouldn’t pay to start any long-term projects. I would live for the enjoyment of the moment, disregarding all possible adverse future consequences (because I would believe I have no future).
● 10-18-2010: We all like to think our own perceptions and sentiments are truer, sounder, than those of other people. Ultimately, however, our thoughts are not better; they’re just ours.
[Later note (2020): Well, that’s a switch!]
● 10-25-2010: I bought a new (used) car a few weeks ago (a 1991 Toyota Cressida). Except for just a few flaws, it’s a luxury car. By far the most significant flaw was a rattle. Today, miraculously, I actually fixed it. I isolated the rattle’s origin, and purchased some pencil-top rubber erasers (for one dollar). I took one and pressed it in between the two vibrating plastic parts in the car, and—voilà—no more rattle!
● Saturday, 10-30-2010: Today I took my old blue 1982 Toyota Cressida to the junkyard (also known as the crusher), under a program in which the state pays owners of old cars $1,000 to “retire” them. I felt a tinge of sadness about getting rid of it. I’ve owned it and driven it regularly for over twenty years. I tried to get a photographer to take a picture of the car, but I was unable to find one open so early. And I felt I didn’t have the time or the patience to postpone the action. That was by far the longest I’ve ever owned any motor vehicle. I suffered with it for many years, especially the last few years. I hope I never again have to own a car that long. Compared to it (and to my father’s, the same model, but 1984), my new car (1991 Toyota Cressida) is a dream car. In an instant, I’ve gone from a lousy car to a fine car. I’ll probably get rid of Jerry’s car soon the same way.
● 10-31-2010: Good and Bad Arguments to Legalize Marijuana: I believe that marijuana should be legalized because, although its use is counterproductive for many users, it’s a victimless crime, and a person ought to have the right to do it. Spending your time watching inane television programs, too, is bad, but we shouldn’t prosecute people for it. That would do more harm than good, to the abusers, to their family and friends, and to the rest of us, who must pay for the legal apparatus.
But let’s separate the good arguments here from the bad. One of the latter is the observation that the laws against marijuana are disproportionately enforced against persons of color. Which is true but irrelevant. If the laws prohibiting murder were disproportionately enforced against persons of color, would this be a reason to legalize murder?
● Thursday, 11-4-2010: Why the Republicans won in 2010 (last Tuesday): My own interpretation is this: When the Democrats took office in 2008, they promised the American people that they (the Democrats) would reverse course (“Change!”). But it turns out that their policies were not much different than those of the Republicans. The Republicans take the country in the wrong direction at 100 miles an hour; the Democrats, at 90 miles an hour. Many Democratic voters, feeling impotent and/or betrayed, simply failed to turn out at the polls this time. Other voters who felt the same, did the only thing our political system allows them to do to throw the bums out, which is to vote for the other major party (the Republicans). That the Republicans are even worse, these voters either were too naive to know, or acted anyway because it was the only readily available way to express their anger.
● 11-7-2010: In living, it may be helpful to focus exclusively on what you need to do to accomplish your goals, without dwelling on the requirements’ fairness or unfairness.
● In revision 8 of “Morality”; I put quotation marks around the word values in this sentence: “But I hold and act upon other values as well as creative fruitfulness, including pleasure.” I did so because I do not value (my) pleasure; rather, I need or desire it.
● It’s amazing how many people aren’t the type of people they are.
● 11-28-2010: In a recent radio interview, a (Haitian) survivor of the 2010 Haitian earthquake said that, despite the great devastation of Haiti, she still had hope for the country. But what hope did she have?—for whom? Presumably, the hope is not for those who died. In the aftermath of a national disaster, some survivors will do poorly, and others will do well. Is the hope that more of them will do well than do badly?; that there will be a sufficient number who do well to insure the country’s survival and advancement? Or is it the hope merely that you yourself will be among those who do well?
● Wittgenstein says, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.” I would offer this paraphrase (or slight variation): When you have nothing to say, say nothing. When you have something to say, speak.
[Later note (9-3-2023): Wittgenstein’s maxim is tautological: Of course, if you cannot speak, you must be silent . . . unless he has in mind a way of making noise other than speaking. . . . On second thought, he probably means: When you cannot speak intelligently, keep quiet. If that advice were widely followed, the world would be less noisy . . . but also less sociable. When you make social conversation, you can’t always wait until you have something “intelligent” to say. Probably a bigger problem than unintelligent talk, is hateful talk. . . . But Wittgenstein was probably speaking about philosophers—when they’re philosophizing.]
● When God instructed President George W. Bush to invade Iraq, did He (God) know that Iraq had no “weapons of mass destruction”?
● 11-30-2010: I went to the old house in Encino today to give it one last look before turning over the keys to the landlord. While inside the house, I cried. I lived the last seven years of my life there. It was a rather fruitful creative period.
And I’m already suffering in my new home. There are cockroaches. Worst of all, there’s a terrible lack of privacy, with neighbors on both sides of my apartment, and paper-thin walls.
● Saturday, 12-4-2010: My father, Jerry had a small heart attack this morning, and I took him to the hospital.
● 12-5-2010: I’m very proud of the eighth revision of my piece “Morality”; I feel especially fortunate to have come upon the major philosophical insight that the work embodies, the average-happiness ethic, the fusion of egoism and utilitarianism. That principle is a natural complement to and extension of my first great philosophical breakthrough, thirty-three years ago: the impossibility of intrinsic value; and this piece (“Morality”) is a perfect companion to that earlier work, titled “Ethics.” My “Ethics” is the antithesis to utilitarianism; my “Morality” is the synthesis. To have created (or discovered) the intrinsic-value-impossibility thesis (and expressed it in a superb literary composition) is better fortune than a man could reasonably hope for in a lifetime. To have come up with this second original, powerful concept as well (likewise embedded in a fine literary composition), is, well . . . for me to feel unlucky about anything in my life, for even the briefest moment, ever again, would seem outrageous. And yet, my ultimate mission is to make my work, especially these works, known to the world. Unless that happens, my discovery of these ideas, and the creation of the works that evince them, is all for naught. Until I possess the world’s recognition, my accomplishments, and my gratification over them, must remain extremely qualified.
● 12-6-2010: I got a terrible shock today. I called my father’s bank to check his balance in preparation for transferring some money to my account, which money I’ve been counting on (about two months ago he gave me power of attorney on his bank account), and the bank informed me that he’d closed his accounts. Has he lost his bloody mind?! Well, he is losing his mind. To be more candid than perhaps I should be, I’m more concerned about the loss of his money than of his mind. My paramount concern is my own survival and well-being, which my father’s precipitately closing his accounts puts at risk. This is still causing me great anxiety and anger. It has been an awful day, and I’m still reeling. I’ve been unable to sleep. I’m in pain. I can’t resolve the matter until my father gets out of the hospital, and then I must handle it delicately.
● 12-12-2010: Yesterday, I resolved the problem with my father’s bank account. He apparently closed the account in utter ignorance of the consequences. I got the thousand dollars’ content of the account back from his partner, Florence McKenna (he had given it to her), and my father’s missed monthly deposits will be resent to the reopened account. So nothing was lost, except a bit of time and comfort on my part. I feel a little guilty for being so selfish, to feel agony over a few thousand dollars, and no concern for my father when he was in the hospital after a heart attack. But I understand myself and forgive myself. I’m still in a very precarious financial situation; I’m in danger of losing my health insurance, at very least. My father’s continuing to live (especially given his advanced age, 93, and his senility) is unimportant. But my survival (economic and otherwise) is paramount.
● 12-18-2010: I support Wikileaks because I think that, in the world as it’s presently composed, they do more good than harm. The government secrets the organization has thus far exposed are ones whose revelation has interfered, not with salutary actions, but with destructive ones, like conducting (unjust) war. And this is in the nature of things. The secrets that public officials keep tend to concern bad conduct, not good conduct. You wouldn’t expect to hear a politician complaining that Wikileaks divulged speech or action that constituted his finest hour and he’s very upset that the public knows about it. And Wikileaks would have no motivation, or occasion, to divulge laudable speech or action. The public needn’t know about it, because it’s of no danger to anyone. And it wouldn’t need to be leaked: the politicians themselves would shout it.
● 12-19-2010: Philosophy Club; topic, “Wikileaks.”
● Thursday, 30 December 2010: Overall, it was a good year. Though I developed a problem with two or three fingers of my left hand, which problem remains unresolved, and the prospects thereof uncertain; the positive side of the ledger is significant. Financially, I’ve moved into an apartment that I can afford, significantly less than the $1,750 a month, plus electricity and water, of the house I just came from, this apartment being a home that’s also livable, if less luxurious; I managed to lower my health insurance (Kaiser Permanente) monthly premium ($543.00, instead of $999.00); and I got a new (used) car, which both runs better and is far more reliable (which means less time lost, money spent, and grief experienced on that account). Additionally, I received the cash value (about $15,000) of my father’s stock, from him, which money is in my bank account. And I have the house (a half interest in it), which will be sold soon. Similarly, a number of possibilities have opened up on the career front. So my financial survival is far less precarious than it was, and my mental state has correspondingly gone from anxiety to relative peace. 2010 was likewise good creatively. With the Eighth revision of “Morality,” I think I’ve finally perfected the piece, and am quite proud of it. It’s a masterwork. Thus, all in all, a very good year.
● I just noticed that there are the same number of hours on the clock as months in the year.