2015
● 1-1-2015: Desert ride.
● A ride or drive has two parts: going and returning. The midpoint is the point before which you’re going, or feel as if you’re going, and after which you’re returning, or feel as if you’re returning. A trip has three parts: going; arriving at and being at the destination; and returning.
● 1-2-2015: Will Rogers said he never met a man he didn’t like. Maybe that’s because he had the luxury of not having to spend more than a few moments with any of them.
● 1-4-2015: Our wish to live forever may be no stronger than our wish simply to be significant, if only finitely. Thus we subscribe to the idea of God and Heaven-and-Hell, for its promise of endless life, but perhaps equally, or more, for its implication that our life is important enough to be permanently recorded in God’s book and to warrant eternal reward or punishment.
● 1-5-2015: Today I saw this bumper-sticker message: “What you do with Jesus Christ . . . determines where you spend eternity.” I briefly considered leaving a reply, perhaps something like: “Isn’t that a bit harsh?” Then I thought of expanding it, like this:
“If putting nonbelievers to death is bad, isn’t sending them to Hell just as bad?—or infinitely worse, since an eternity in Hell is infinitely worse than mere death . . . Or maybe sending them to Hell is not wrong, because, unlike other religions, yours is true, and so disbelieving in it is truly bad.”
● 1-6-2015: Seeming-true does not guarantee truth; yet a proposition that seems true is more likely to be true than one that seems false.
● 1-7-2015: The militants who massacred the journalists in France today claim that they did so to “defend the prophet Mohammad.” Their claim is in one sense ironic: the greater insult to the prophet is the implication that he needs to be thus defended.
In fact, I have an idea for a political cartoon on the topic: The drawing is of French policemen interrogating the prophet Mohammad about the killings. Both figures are portrayed respectfully, and Mohammad says: “No, I did not inspire those killings. I knew of the cartoons. But I wasn’t offended by them; I’m bigger than that. In fact, what really offends me is the killers’ assumption that I needed to be defended or avenged over cartoons, and that I’m so mean and petty and unenlightened as to welcome such an atrocity in my name!”
● Sunday, 1-11-2015: Philosophy Club. Topic: “Revenge.”
● There’s a significant natural-number phenomenon in nature: the whole numbers of percipients: each sentient being is a unique awareness (and exactly one in number).
● At the 1-11-2015 philosophy club meeting, one member said that truth-and-reconciliation procedures work well, and have all the elements of retribution, except the retaliatory harm to the wrongdoer. Another member said that vengeance and compassion are antithetical, or incompatible. I’ve had an experience that seems to support both contentions: When I come to a person, and I’m intending to get revenge, even if just verbally, and I imagine he’ll be hostile to me, but he’s instead apologetic, my vengeful anger suddenly completely evaporates, and I’m left feeling something like pity for the person, and guilt about my intention to express anger.
● Especially susceptible to the allure of revenge movies are the masses, who are at considerable disadvantage by the huge wealth and power disparity, which gives them great wells of frustration and resentment. I can’t imagine Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, for example, getting much vicarious cathartic satisfaction from such movies.
● Monday, 1-12-2015: Desert ride.
● Tuesday, 1-13-2015: Today, after (yesterday) missing a good work-assignment for today by missing emails that were sent to me, I finally learned how to use the email feature of my mobile phone.
[Later note (11-12-2023): Interesting. I wouldn’t know how to use the email feature of my present mobile phone, if it even has that feature.]
● Friday, 1-16-2015: The need for quiet takes precedence over the need for sound, as relief from pain takes precedence over pleasure.
● Tuesday, 1-20-2015: If a Neo-Nazi group insisted on marching in uniform through a Jewish neighborhood, and an outraged, crazy Jew shot ten of them; would we hold national parades in honor of the killed Neo-Nazis, and proclaiming our support for them, shouting “We are Neo-Nazis!”? And if we did so, how would we expect Jews to feel about it?
● 1-21-2015: For me, some of the most visually alluring cloud formations are ones that vaguely remind me of landscapes.
● 1-25-2015: Sno moking in the po narking zone.
● Slock rides and slud mides—no laughing matter.
● 1-28-2015: I had a physical examination today, and my doctor (Dr. Bhat, M.D.) essentially gave me the proverbial clean bill of health. . . . And the neighbor just walked into the house, so I can’t stop typing, but instead I’ll just have to keep typing, or it will seem as if I stopped because I heard him come in, and we can’t have that! No. One day, when my ship comes in, I’ll move to more luxurious living quarters! The present apartment is tolerable, and affordable.
● 1-29-2015: I hate dogs and cigarette smokers. In my life I’ve had a lot of misery from both—dogs waking me from sleep with their barking, and smokers fouling the air I breathe.
● 1-31-2015: There’s no authentic me. Or the authentic me is my habitual collection of artificialities. In a sense, this makes it hard or impossible to know myself, to know who I am. And yet, to be aware of this truth about myself is to know myself.
● I’ve worn a brace on my right ring finger for two months every day, during the day. Today is the last day. Now I’ll have to decide whether the problem is sufficient to warrant an injection, which I’m told would be the next step.
● See the 11-9-2009 entry, above. I would also like someday to own a car repair shop, so I can have a sign just outside the entrance: “The Buick stops here.”
● And I’d like to own a copper company, so I can call it the Kipper Cupper Cooper Copper Corporation.
● 2-3-2015: I’ve just received the good news that I’ll get the trademarks on two more of my marks: 1-877-BRILLIANT and 1-877-HELL-YES.
[2020 note: these marks—all of them—have proved to be white elephants for me. I’ve made hardly a nickel from them, but they’ve cost me tens of thousands of dollars to maintain.]
● Saturday, 2-7-2015: The hostile, cigarette-smoking neighbor in apartment 7 (6520 Shirley Avenue, in Reseda, California) moved out today. Hurrah! I think they left as a direct or indirect consequence of my retaliation (the drum-banging).
● Sunday, 2-8-2015: Desert ride. And Philosophy Club; topic: “freedom.” This is the first time I’ve taken my desert ride on the same day as I attended a meeting of the Philosophy Club. (To do both activities in the same day, I have to take the ride first, because the Club meets late in the day—at 5:00 p.m.)
● Rights and freedoms are socially determined, and everyone’s rights and freedoms affect everyone else’s (greater rights and freedoms for some means less for some others). Therefore, the question of rights and freedoms collapses to the question of how we want to structure society.
● 2-11-2015: In battling harassing neighbors, I must keep in mind that my main focus should be on advancing my life. If I let the tit-for-tat with the neighbors distract me from that, I could even win the battle, but lose the war, or the trivial battle could distract me from the important campaign.
● Sunday, 2-15-2015: Desert drive, to Ridgecrest, about 300 miles round-trip. A very pleasant outing. My car performed beautifully. I spotted a dropped package of paper towels on the highway in Mojave, and I stopped and retrieved it.
● If God is perfect, and infinitely good, why does He need creatures—what’s the need for them? What do they add? Why does God make them? . . . How can someone who believes in God ever feel bad or regretful over a human misfortune?: any loss that occurs for men is utterly trivial, because there’s still the great, unsurpassable goodness and magnificence of God.
● 2-18-2015: I’m suffering for lack of knowledge of the result of my 1-888-SU-ABOGADO trademark appeal. I’m in a dreary limbo.
● I had a significant perception today about my neighbors to the east (in apartment no. 3): There’s a cycle in their hostility. What I used to take as a cessation of attack I now see is not really a cessation, but rather a transition from flagrant hostile acts to subtle ones. I much prefer the flagrant acts, as they’re easier to deal with, by an immediate, one-for-one retaliation. Soon enough, though, these simpletons become unable to sustain the subtlety, and someone in the apartment breaks into overt hostility, which enables me to discharge my anger by retaliation. It’s a never-ending war. It’s the price I pay for cheap rent here. And the solution is simply to persevere and continue to pursue my plan to increase my wealth, so that I can afford better things in life. But this realization is helpful meanwhile. From now on, I won’t let a momentary cessation lull me into thinking that they’ve become my friends, or that hostilities are over, and so I won’t forebear retaliation, when appropriate, fearing that I might disrupt an incipient friendliness. Not continually getting fooled is itself an improvement.
● My computer slightly malfunctioned, and I’ve decided to deal with it by replacing it. It’s been an interesting day.
● Being single is better than being in a bad marriage, not as good as being in a good marriage.
● The so-called Islamic terrorists are not essentially Islamic—they’re essentially terrorists. They are (or should be) as offensive to peace-loving Muslims as they are to peace-loving non-Muslims.
● 2-21-2015: Haircut.
● 2-27-2015: The more realistic computer simulations get, the closer we come to the day when a man charged with a crime will defend himself by declaring, “I thought it was a video game!”
● Saturday, 2-28-2015: I bought a new computer and two new printers. The new computer was installed today, and the printers should arrive next week.
● 3-4-2015: Since last Friday (2-27-2015) I’ve had a flare-up of pain in my lower back, for which I’ve been taking narcotic pain medicine. I’ve suspended my daily walks.
● I’ve reverted to lying down in bed during the day. I simply can’t resist; or resisting is too painful.
● Saturday, 3-7-2015: Desert ride.
● Being conscious, let alone being human, is astronomically—nay, infinitely—unlikely; if you find being conscious fortunate, it’s infinitely fortunate. And yet the fortune that most people focus on is their status or situation within the human race, only a finite matter, practically nothing compared to the miracle of simply being a human.
● A poem is the way it is, not because the poet needed to express what he expressed, but merely because he couldn’t think of anything better. I write, not to express myself, but to create. If I wish to express anything, it’s just my creative genius. The specific content of a work of mine, though important to the work, and to me, is not the work’s purpose, or point; it’s merely raw material, an opportunity to create another piece of work. Of course, the paradox is that, to fulfill the meta-motivation of creating work, the artist must have some first-order (or is it second-order?) subject matter he’s passionate about, or at least interested in, to provide the work’s raw material. It’s like the paradox of happiness: It can’t be achieved by aiming at it directly; it’s a byproduct of doing other things.
● 3-9-2015: An alternative version of Heaven or Hell or limbo: Perhaps God sends us to the afterlife, not with permanent conditions, but he slowly turns the external conditions closer and closer to those we knew on Earth, to test us, to see what we’ve learned from our experience of the afterlife, in a process of continual adjustment. Is there a Heaven or Hell for lower animals and insects? I raised these questions in a dream I just awoke from.
[Later note (2021): Which might explain why the first part of that entry doesn’t quite seem to make sense.]
● 3-11-2015: Who is the mother of God? What is the relationship between Christ and God?
[Later note (2021): If there’s a Mother of God, that means that God didn’t create everything; one thing He didn’t create was his mother. It would also mean that God would be the son of . . . the son of the Mother of God. . . . Was there a Father of God . . . or was this another immaculate conception?]
[Still later note (later in 2021): I just looked up “Mother of God,” and found that it refers to the mother of Christ, not of God Himself—in other words, of God, Jr., not of God, Sr. Nonetheless, I’ll leave the previous “Later note,” because it’s funny.]
● Sunday, 3-15-2015: Philosophy Club. Topic: “Self-deception.”
● Those who doubt the possibility of human self-deception have I think too high an opinion of our intelligence, rationality, and self-awareness. The brain is a turbulent place, and, so to speak, the left brain often doesn’t know what the right brain is doing.
● I like to think I’m superior to most (the vast majority of) other men, and that I’m somehow in a different category of mortality: that my work is great enough that it will live forever, and that I’ll thus be “immortal”; I deride the common man for blithely going about as if his life and work matters, whereas my own (at least my work) really does. And yet, I know that nothing (including the greatest art) is intrinsically valuable; and that eventually my work, and all other work, and humanity itself, will perish. So my situation in this way is fundamentally the same as everyone else’s. If anything, it’s a difference in degree, but not in kind. It’s a sort of self-deception of feeling that I encourage in myself. It helps motivate my continuing to produce what I value, and allows me to be happier.
● I have for a long time striven to be a good “meantime man”: while waiting for circumstances to improve, don’t do nothing and simply wait; instead, do productive work. It accomplishes results that I value, and it also makes me feel better, because, despite the discomfort, I still feel good about what I’ve accomplished.
● How can we detect our own self-deception? One, we can look to events for clues, the same way we would evaluate a scientific theory by looking to the results it predicts. If a scientific theory predicts certain events, but they fail to materialize, we conclude that the theory is wrong. So, too, if the world seems to conflict with what your thought about yourself would suggest, then begin to question whether you’re not deceiving yourself in this way. For example, if a competitive swimmer thinks he’s the fastest swimmer in town, yet he badly loses all his swimming races, this should make him question his belief in his superior swimming ability. And, two, if, as seems true, ulterior or indirect rewards, such as comfort, are a factor in determining our beliefs, then simply coming to value greater self-honesty and self-awareness can help motivate one to uncover self-deception.
● 3-20-2015: I’m not infrequently tired during the day, and wakeful at night.
● Sunday, 3-22-2015: I had a dream, probably inspired by a movie I watched yesterday, in which I was one of a very small group, fewer than ten, of human survivors. I was writing a book, or grand essay, which I had titled, Man’s Perseverance: Individually and Collectively, Now and in the Future.
● 3-29-2015: I’m going to try to get rid of my affectedness. I’m not sure I know who I am. Being an authentic person is not easy.
● Thursday, 4-2-2015: Santa Barbara drive. I ate at José’s Café, for the first time . . . and the last.
● Friday, 4-3-2015: Another drive to Ridgecrest (for pleasure): it was very pleasant. I, incidentally, bought a shirt at Kohl’s on the way. In Ridgecrest I bought earplugs at Walgreens Pharmacy for the first time (I’ve never bought them at Walgreens before). This morning before I left, I checked the pressure of the tires on my car. I used both of the new Dill electronic tire gauges I recently bought, and was pleased to find that they gave the same reading, at least at the pressure at which I keep my tires. Today I also learned a trick for cleaning my car windshield: wiping the water off the top of the squeegee before you pull it across the glass to remove the water from the glass prevents the tool from leaving little lines of water, which are otherwise left at the tip of the squeegee.
● “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS” is a popular slogan these days in this country, largely, it seems, among pro-war people. I’ve come up with this answer version, in the form of a bumper sticker: “Let’s start a war, so we can . . . SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!” The “Support Our Troops!” would be in large, colorful text. The lead-in, “Let’s start a war . . .” would be above it in smaller print, small enough so that you wouldn’t see it until you looked at it carefully and up-close.
[Later note (2021): Of course, you wouldn’t actually put such a bumper sticker on your car unless you considered your car expendable; that message would be a virtual invitation to vandalism of your car, by pro-war right-wingers.]
● Sunday, 4-5-2015: Bakersfield drive today.
● An American President often says that he represents, not just those who voted for him, but every American. “Representing everyone,” however, is problematic. He can’t help everyone, for resources are scarce, and, by and large, an action that helps some will hurt others. Instead, representing everyone means to maximize the general welfare—to help the most and hurt the fewest, or to do the greatest net good, to achieve the greatest per capita well-being.
● 4-7-2015: I have a headache, but I’m in a fine mood. The net effect is that I feel good—very good (the headache is not that bad).
● 4-11-2015: AIDS: worse than cooties.
● Sunday, 4-12-2015: Desert ride.
● My goal in life is to be the best gippergoose of them all.
● Digital technology got its name this way. It was invented by two hippies. One said, “Let’s call it all-good, because it’s all good.” The other replied, “It’s not all good—some analog (audio) recordings sound better than ones made with our new technology.” The other said, “Anyway, because I invented it, I dig it all.” The other said, “Then why don’t we call it ‘I-dig-it-all’?” The first inventor liked the idea. They eventually dropped the initial “I”; then the dashes; and lastly the final “l”: digital.
● 4-13-2015: Last night I dreamed that I was a psychiatrist. I had a young patient who wanted to commit suicide, and it was my task to talk her out of it. She lamented that we die soon, anyway, and it really doesn’t matter. I told her I thought she was right, but tried to persuade her to see it this way: I said we each hold in our hand the seed of our self. Eventually it will be swept into the great torrent; but we have the choice whether to throw the seed directly into the water or to set it on the ledge to briefly bloom and dance first. I told her, it might not matter in the end, but I’d like to see her dance on the ledge for a time. In my own brief time here, it would make me happy to see that.
● Sunday, 4-19-2015: It’s been almost a year and a half since I urinated naturally (without catheterizing)—the last time was 12 December 2013. Since then, I haven’t been able to get so much as a drop out naturally.
● 4-21-2015: If the death penalty were right for certain crimes, like murder, because the punishment should fit the crime, ala “an eye for an eye,” then we would punish those who torture and kill others by torturing and killing them, which we don’t do. In a civilized society, criminal punishment, to be fit, need not match the crime in kind.
● Our everyday optimism—a sense that our life, or things generally, will turn out well, or are going in the right direction—essential to our mental health, doesn’t bear rigorous analysis (as they say: in the long run we’re all dead). For all our vaunted rationality, we’re a bit absurd. A cheap way to seem profound is simply to analyze (inevitably to its detriment) our basis for optimism.
● We’re the walking absurd.
● 4-27-2015: I had a dream last night (or early this morning) in which I had used six or so nuclear-weapon-tipped missiles to carve a design on the face of the moon. I was very proud of my artistic and technical feat; one knowledgeable man expressed admiration for my accomplishment (looking at the moon through a glass, he said, “That’s amazing!”). And I was ecstatic about my immanent fame, which I thought would come as soon as people got around to taking a look at the moon. This was the most magical, marvelous feeling I remember having in any dream. I found it curious that no one, except that one knowledgeable fellow, noticed my work. The ecstasy was tempered with a bit of apprehension, about possible criticism of my having set a dangerous precedent of vainly tampering with planetary integrity (a change in the distribution of the moon’s material could affect tides on earth, and so forth).
[Later note (7-28-2024): Here’s my interpretation of that dream: The feat is my disproof of certain entities fundamental to many people’s worldview, like intrinsic value and God. It’s an achievement of cosmic proportions, but few persons, if any, know of it. If and when the public becomes aware of it, many will feel profoundly shaken by it, so much so, indeed, that I could be in mortal danger.]
● 4-28-2015: I recently had a new garage-door open-close motor installed, and the installers gave me new remote-controllers for the door. The door motor works fine, but the button on the remote-control is not recessed much and it occupies a large portion of the surface of one side of the device, making it easy to accidently press and thus open the garage door (remotely, and unknowingly, as when I’m in my apartment). I was continually accidentally opening it. The last time it happened was this morning, when I came out to get my car and found the garage door already open. This time something was stolen from the garage: about $80 worth of motor oil. Fortunately, apparently nothing else was taken, and, most important, my car was still there and not broken into. I went shopping for a solution. In Bed, Bath & Beyond, I found a hard plastic case for a razor; the remote-control fits in it almost snugly, and the button can’t be activated when inside the case, which is still small enough to fit in my pocket. To boot, I also found there a better price on the earplugs I use every night. I think this was a perfect resolution—it almost seems that it was for the best that I accidentally opened the garage door and that the oil was taken.
● Sunday, 5-2-2015: I’m in pain. My income has fallen sharply in the last month, and I don’t have enough money to pay all my bills, without drawing down my savings, which I’m loath to do, so my debt accumulates. I haven’t written a piece of creative work for months. It’s been almost five months since we submitted the appeal on my 1-888-SU-ABOGADO trademark application, and we still haven’t gotten a decision on it. And I’m besieged by my constantly-hostile neighbors. These misfortunes are more or less temporary, and in a larger sense not very serious. But it’s painful. And it’s reasonable. When things are going better, even temporarily and superficially, I use that as occasion to feel good, and I celebrate it. It’s only consistent on my part to feel bad when things are going poorly. I must bear it, work to change it, and go on.
● Desert ride. This was my first desert ride since the transmission of the car was replaced (with a refurbished one). The car performed beautifully. This transmission is geared slightly lower than the previous one. I have a morbid tendency to baby the car, and so instead of revving the engine higher to maintain the same cruising speed as before, I go a little slower so as not to have to rev the engine higher (feeling that revving the engine higher is somehow hurting it). Perhaps my neurotic need to baby the car comes from my lack of income, which means that I have to make the car last as long as possible, since I might not have the funds to replace it.
● 5-4-2015: I had a dream in which I was instructing a student on the logic of living, and had reduced the teaching to a sentence, but I can’t remember what it was. Of course, that’s one of those nonsense ideas that populate dreams. Like water and oil, living and logic don’t mix; they’re antithetical.
[Later note (2021): The statement that life and logic are antithetical is inaccurate. They’re different kinds of things, but they don’t conflict with each other. In fact, at least in an informal sense of logic, one can make logical or rational decisions about living. For example, if your goal is to get a set of chores done as quickly as possible, some sequences will be more efficient and effective than others, which you could rationally work out. And our use of logic is part of life (the dead don’t use logic). Plus, we may take pride in our sense of logic; and pride, too, is part of life. And yet, I was right in saying that life is not logical or illogical.]
● The high cost of low rent: hostile neighbors.
[Later note (2021): There’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t have the same problem in a more expensive apartment. I suspect that, as long as I have common-wall neighbors and a lack of soundproofing between apartments, the problem will persist. The solution, renting a house or a sound-proof apartment, would probably be, not just more expensive, but much more expensive.]
● 5-5-2015: It seems to me that the last few decades has seen an inflation in clothes-size designations: I used to wear shirts sized “medium” or at most “large”; now it’s “extra-large”; but I haven’t gotten any bigger. I think perhaps it’s because there are an increasing percentage of smaller people in the population, perhaps due to immigration from Mexico and Latin American countries. And the clothes manufacturers are loath to slight them by making them wear “small” clothes, so they shift all the size-names up one, so that the small men can think of themselves as “medium”-sized.
● Sunday, 5-10-2015: Desert ride. I’ve decided on a new strategy of counterattack for the neighbors to the east, in no. 3: to resume using the nuclear option (the ultimate weapon) against the major aggressor there, in combination with the overt retaliation of the woodblock. That leopard does not change her spots. Despite all the chances I’ve given her to stop the hostility, she remains dedicated to attacking me in whatever ways she can get away with. From now on, I’m going to take off the gloves in my retaliation.
● 5-16-2015: I’m far less interested in knowing what beauty or art is, or in philosophizing about beauty and art, than I am in creating beautiful art.
● That’s good. Yes, that is good.
● I don’t know if I’d find my work so beautiful if I didn’t know that I was the author.
● Sunday, 5-17-2015: Philosophy Club. Topic: “beauty.”
● I haven’t used the nuclear option in my retaliation against the neighbors, as I said I would do in my comment of 5-10-2015. I’ve managed to keep my restraint. And it seems to be paying off. There seems to be a real, if slow, change, both in me, and in the neighbors in response to my restraint. In fact, by this weekend there has been a great transformation in the relations with those neighbors: the hostile acts are nearly completely gone.
[Later note (2021): I would refer myself to my above note of 2-18-2015.]
● To be alive—this minuscule pinpoint in eternity—is exquisitely rare. I had been contemplating this one day. That night it carried over into my dreams and night thoughts; and I awoke in almost a panic, thinking, “Am I still alive?!”
● Someone at the Philosophy Club meeting said that Plato argues that a thing’s beauty is a matter of how closely it corresponds to its form. I replied that this could not be true, for presumably there’s a form for Ugliness, and something that closely corresponds to that form should be ugly.
● What’s the relationship between art and beauty? Must a work be beautiful to be art?
● The hedonic theory of beauty would seem easily refutable: I can have a headache and be in overall pain while listening to the music of Bach, and even recognizing its beauty. Or you could be in a good mood while contemplating an ugly piece of music.
● Tuesday, 5-19-2015: My 64th birthday is almost upon me, and I’m in pain. My finances are faltering; I’m in a rut, in both my career and my personal life. The long-awaited decision from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board regarding (the government’s denial of) my trademark application for 1-888-SU-ABOGADO has still not come. I feel like a bus passenger anticipating a bus that never comes. I’m now forced to look at my surroundings where I’m waiting for the bus. I’m at least temporarily stranded here, and it’s a bleak place.
● Thursday, 5-21-2015: Happy Birthday, Richard! Things are looking a bit brighter today than they did just a few days ago. I may have added a new attorney-client for my deposition appearances. Suddenly there’s a little more (paid) work.
● I went in this afternoon to see Ali, of the Law Offices of Payman Zargari. He asked me to itemize from memory the time I billed for in the two depositions I handled for the office. He practically accused me of lying. It has left a very bad taste in my mouth.
● Sunday, 5-24-2015: Bakersfield-Mojave ride!
● The power of non-acknowledgement: When you respond to your enemy’s psychological hostile tactic, you give him power over you with it. Conversely, when you refuse to respond, refuse to acknowledge the tactic, you deprive him of power. There’s a certain power in that. And the enemy is chagrined, at the frustration of his effort.
● Wednesday, 6-3-2015: Yesterday I think I stumbled on the perfect retaliation for the hostile neighbor to the east (in apartment no. 3): the sound of the normal plastic-glove use. I inadvertently used it yesterday; I immediately sensed its effectiveness; and today, for the first time ever, it seems, there was not so much as a peep from the hostile neighbor in 3.
● Haircut.
● Sunday, 6-7-2015: Santa Barbara drive. Actually, I went to Goleta, just past (west of) Santa Barbara, to eat at the In ‘N’ Out Burger there. Then I went to Santa Barbara and ate ice cream (strawberry) at Cold Stone Creamery. Before I left home, I felt that the neighbor to the west, in apartment no. 1, attacked me by closing his car door as I walked by. I felt better only when I considered that I would get even by making the “sound” on my return home. I did make the “sound” then, but tried to keep it low, lest he know his gesture was effective.
● Saturday, 6-13-2015: Today at Costco I bought three cases of motor oil and two shirts: Jamaica Jaxx brand, one light green with a bamboo print; the other, dark blue. I won’t use them right away; I’ll start wearing them (one of them) when the shirt I now use wears out.
● Sunday, 6-14-2015: Desert ride. I was a good citizen today. I saw a large rock (a bit bigger than two large fists) in the middle of the road, and I went back and moved it off the road.
● I just finished watching the entire television series Nip/Tuck.
● Wednesday, 6-24-2015: Interview with Rodolfo at Law Offices of Scott Warmuth.
● Saturday, 6-27-2015: Tomorrow is the monthly meeting of the Philosophy Club, which I prepare for and attend religiously. But I’m skipping this one, because I have to get up unusually early Monday morning, for a deposition in Bakersfield. I’m nonetheless reading the articles assigned on the topic (natural kinds) . . . or I will do so.
● 7-1-2015: I replaced my old driving gloves with a new pair (the old ones—the right one—completely fell apart).
[Later note (11-20-2024): That’s typical of me. My tightfistedness compels me to make practically every possession last until it falls apart.]
● 7-5-2015: 2015 is turning out to be the year of waiting and stagnation. I feel as if I’ve put all my plans on hold awaiting the decision of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board regarding the trademark on my 1-888-SU-ABOGADO. And I haven’t done any creative writing in at least half a year.
● Thursday, 7-9-2015: First deposition for Scott Warmuth, Esq.
● Sunday, 7-12-2015: Last week I got another client for workers’ compensation depositions: Law Offices of Scott Warmuth. He has three offices, the main one in the City of Industry. They want me to do all of their workers’ compensation depositions, and they have a lot of them, at least one every other day. July will have been my busiest month for a long time in that regard.
● Desert ride.
● Sunday, 7-19-2015: Philosophy Club. Topic: “emotion.”
● Emotion, or feeling, is what makes us care about anything. Thought itself is inconceivable without feeling. You couldn’t construct an argument, because you wouldn’t care about proving any proposition. You wouldn’t get from one thought to another, because you would have no motivation to do so. You would have no intellectual curiosity, no interest in thinking, curiosity and interest being matters of feeling. I expressed this thought at the meeting, and one member disagreed with me, arguing that he often had random thoughts occur to him, with no particular motivation on his part. To which I said that there may be a difference between thoughts and thinking.
● 7-25-2015: In the last few weeks my work situation has improved considerably. I’ve increased the number of attorney-clients who hire me to handle their workers’ compensation depositions (defending applicants’ depositions), so that now, during the week, I rarely have a day off. And I’ve reached a financial milestone of sorts in recent times: I’ve finally paid off all my debts (except $6,000 I still owe to Attorney Berliner for his work on my trademarks). I’ve paid off the new computer; the yearly renewal of the registration of my domain names; and today I made a big buy of sundry household supplies at Costco (every year I stock up on goods just before my membership expires, so that I can put off the cost of renewal for as long as possible)—all without invading my savings (of which I still have over $100,000). I have only $200 in my bank checking account, but that will soon grow, and my purse is fat. I’m sitting pretty.
● Sunday, 7-26-2015: Desert ride.
● 7-27-2015: Hope is the secular equivalent of faith.
● 8-2-2015: Eating is a constant battle for me. I must constantly exert my will power to avoid eating more, especially sweets. If I didn’t restrain my eating, I’d quickly become very overweight. As it is, I’m losing the battle slightly; my belly is growing, almost imperceptibly. I have a plan to significantly reduce my calorie intake, especially sweets. Every night, at the end of dinner, I eat a dessert of ten pieces of licorice, followed by a piece of rich chocolate cake. My plan is to eliminate the chocolate cake, but to compensate by increasing my licorice allotment to fifteen pieces, presumably a net calorie and sugar reduction.
● Monday, 8-3-2015: My first intentionally cake-less night for many years.
● 8-4-2015: I drove to San Diego today (and back), for a deposition. It was the first time I’d made the trip to San Diego for many decades.
● 8-6-2015: Today was a turning point in my relations with the next-door neighbor to the west (in apartment no. 1). For months he had been viciously attacking me. I both skillfully deflected the attacks and skillfully retaliated. Today there was a new tone. It feels to me as if he’s given up attacking me, probably realizing that it’s not accomplishing his purpose (to hurt me), and that it just ends up hurting him.
● 8-8-2015: To love the world, or to love yourself, you must love your place in the world. And if you hate your place in it, you’ll hate the world, and yourself; and you’ll want to hurt whom you feel responsible for your misfortune. (If you consider society to blame for your hating your place in the world, you’ll want to hurt society.)
● 8-9-2015: Desert ride.
● Sunday, 8-16-2015: You are that which ceases to exist when you die (your consciousness).
● 8-22-2015: Is happiness a mood, or an emotion? It seems to me that it’s better described as a mood, since a mood is a more general state. You can be happy for any number of reasons, or for no reason.
● Sunday, 8-23-2015: Desert half-drive (I bought shampoo at a store in Rosamond; and I had pizza at Barone’s Pizza in Lancaster. It was too late in the day to take the full ride).
● 8-29-2015: Ultimately, I’m completely selfish. I care about other species only as they affect man. And I care about other men only because of their relationship to me. If I were aware of the existence of a civilization of intelligent beings in a distant galaxy millions of light years away, my interest in their welfare would be merely a vague intellectual curiosity.
● Sunday, 8-30-2015: Santa Barbara drive. Having now returned home, I feel strangely fatigued, with slight back pain, and a loss of appetite. I feel as if I’m very sick, with severe muscle aches and nausea, but without the aches and nausea. I don’t recall feeling quite like this before.
● 9-5-2015: I have my own simple, nontoxic insect-control system: I kill them when I see them (by mechanical means or by spraying them with standard household isopropyl alcohol).
[Later note (9-28-2024): I suspect that that strategy works only if there are, in the structure in question, relatively few insects.]
● Sunday, 9-6-2015: Ridgecrest drive. On the way, I ate for the first time at Crazy Otto’s Restaurant, in Acton (they have several locations in the Antelope Valley). I had a waffle, sausage patty, and scrambled eggs. On the check was printed various tip calculations as percentages of the bill: 15%; 18%; 20%; and 22%. I noticed that the tips were calculated on the bill after tax, not (properly) on the bill before tax. I left a 20% tip, calculated on the bill before tax. I told the cashier about the error, and she said the computer had made a mistake. Of course, I knew that the mistake was made, not by the computer, but by the restaurant, in an attempt to get the public to pay more in tips than is proper, so they (the restaurant) can pay the servers less. But I didn’t say it. I simply said, “. . . Not that they don’t deserve it.” She replied, “They do.” Then, about twenty miles farther on, in Rosamond, I picked up the last bottle of Tea Tree shampoo at Cost Cutters (haircutters). On the way back, I stopped at my usual place to urinate, in Red Rock Canyon State Park. There was a very weird sight: 22 large bottles of different sizes apparently filled with urine (not mine).
● 9-8-2015: There was no hot water today, so I had to take a cold shower. I used much less water than usual.
● 9-11-2015: Necessity is the mother of discovery.
● Saturday, 9-12-2015: My name is Richard J. Eisner. I live in unit 2 at 6520 Shirley Avenue, Reseda, California 91335-5757. On Saturday, 12 September 2015, just after 3:00 p.m., I was assaulted by, or at the prompting of, my next-door neighbor, the woman in unit 3. The incident started in the laundry room, which contains two washing machines and two dryers. I wanted to do my laundry, but the washing machines were in use. When that wash cycle ended, I waited at least 10 minutes to give the owner of the clothes a chance to remove them. Because I couldn’t wait any longer, and because I didn’t know whom the clothes belonged to, I moved them. I was as courteous about it as I could be. The wash was separated: colors in one washer, whites in the other. I maintained the separation, putting the colored things in one dryer and the whites in the other dryer. Then a woman came into the laundry room—my neighbor from unit 3—and began yelling at me for moving her laundry. I tried to explain the circumstances, but she didn’t want to hear it, and she kept yelling at me. I said that if she was so concerned that no one touch her stuff she should have arranged to remove it promptly. She said she would sue me. I asked her what she would sue me for, and she said for invasion of her privacy. I told her to go ahead and sue me. Then she said she was going to call the police. I said, “Please do.” She stormed out of the room.
Twenty minutes later, she brings her boyfriend (who I think is not a policeman) to my apartment (number 2). When I opened the door, in response to loud, aggressive banging, the boyfriend steps partly into my home, uninvited by me, and shouts, “If you touch her stuff again, I’ll stab you! . . . You don’t know who you’re dealing with, motherfucker!” He swings his fist toward me several times, and spits in my face. Then he kicks a little table inside my apartment near the entrance; the table folds up and all the stuff on it goes on the floor. I ask him what his name is; he won’t give it to me. He leaves the building; and the woman goes back toward her apartment.
[Later note (2021): With hindsight’s usual clarity, I see that I made two mistakes there: first, not to wait longer than ten minutes for the owner of the clothes to remove them from the washing machines; and, second, to open my door in response to loud, aggressive banging.]
● 9-18-2015: How happy are angels? Does God have fun? Does God take vacations? Where does He go for vacation?
● Sunday, 9-20-2015: Philosophy Club. Topic: “Moral character.”
● It has been noted that the ancient Greek philosophers’ focus on moral character was displaced by later philosophers’ emphasis on moral duty. This shift makes sense to me, for it seems that morality is essentially a matter of duty, to others. To pursue something just for your own sake is a matter, not of morality, but merely of desire or motivation. The surest boost to general practical moral character would be rough equality of wealth. When one person’s advancement is an advancement for everyone, and vice versa, there’s an automatic motive to serve the well-being of others—all persons’ interests are aligned; everyone is on the same team.
[Later note (11-23-2023): As it is now, with great wealth disparity under capitalism, a rich person’s receiving great monetary rewards for hurting the world, by, say, polluting the environment, or simply by keeping others poor, militates against his changing his conduct. And a poor person thinks, Why should I help a world that’s hurting me?]
● 9-22-2015: I started listening to a new course on audio, for the first time in several years. This one is about the science and art of talk.
[Later note (2021): Unusually for me, I didn’t finish it. In fact, I didn’t get very far into it.]
● Saturday, 9-26-2015: Haircut.
● Sunday, 9-27-2015: I had a headache this morning, which I think was from caffeine withdrawal: yesterday I had much less caffeine than usual.
● Truncated desert ride. I stopped in Lancaster to do some more writing on my piece on moral character. Then I drove to Rosamond and ate breakfast at Crazy Otto’s Diner. From there, I returned home, instead of making my usual ride in Mojave; I had missed my daily exercise-walk because of a headache, and I wanted to do the walk, and work on the writing.
● 9-28-2015: It has been said that a person’s choice of a car reflects his personality. It seems to me that a person’s choice of a car reflects mainly his financial status, and only secondarily his personality. A rich person’s choice of car, on the other hand, probably reflects equally his financial status and his personality (unless he buys an inexpensive car, which would then reflect his personality).
● My long term gets shorter every day.
● 10-3-2015: I consider my creative talents to be so substantial that my developing and using them is the most effective way in which I can help the world. It’s also the most effective way in which I can help myself.
● Am I an act utilitarian; a rule utilitarian; or a motive utilitarian? I’m for whatever version of utility leads to the best outcome.
● Sunday, 10-4-2015: Desert ride.
● 10-5-2015: Today, for the very first time in my life, I bought a whole onion and cut it for my salad. Until now, I had bought pre-cut onions at the salad bar. I did this (bought a whole onion) at the suggestion of a cashier at Gelson’s Market, where I buy my groceries.
● I got in touch with a lawyer today about suing the neighbor’s boyfriend for the 9-12-2015 assault and battery on me. He (the lawyer) asked if I had seen a psychologist (to deal with the trauma, since monetary recoveries in personal injury cases are typically based on medical bills). I told him I haven’t—that my best therapy would be suing the guy. I sent him my account of the incident; he said he’d think about it and get back to me.
[Later note (2021): He never did get back to me, and I stopped pursuing it, judging it a waste of time.]
● 10-11-2015: Two days ago, on 10-9-2015, I finally got the news I’d been waiting for, for over ten months: the decision of the Board on my 1-888-SU-ABOGADO trademark. But it wasn’t the decision I’d hoped for—I lost the appeal. But I have many other trademarks, and now I’ll call Attorney David Berns to set a meeting with him to discuss our options. I spent most of the weekend revising and printing a flyer with an ad incorporating another of my trademarks, 1-888-ACE-ATTY. That’s the one I’ll propose to use with David.
● 10-12-2015: I just awoke from a dream: I had a high position in the trucking industry, one of several steerers, not actually driving a truck, but getting large transportation projects to happen, implementing them. I had certain personal ethical qualms about doing it. I momentarily gave vent to those qualms and failed to fulfill my function, or at least publicly questioned what I was doing. Then the industry higher-ups forced me out of my position, and, when I realized what was happening, I deeply regretted what I’d done. I tried to come back from it, to get back in line, so to speak. But it was probably too late; the damage had been done.
● In this life I’ve been dealt a magnificent hand of cards (and I’ll do very well if I play them right). But I’m a lousy card player. And yet, I consider myself resilient and resourceful.
● 10-17-2015: I burnt my right middle finger on my hot car engine.
● Tuesday, 10-20-2015: This morning I met with Attorney David C. Berns, regarding advertising, and I presented him with a flyer incorporating my 1-877-HELL-YES.com. The meeting went very well; he likes 1-877-HELL-YES.
[Later note (2020): No, the meeting was a disaster: HELL-YES is a terrible advertising property. My tactlessness alienated him. He never spoke to me again.]
● 10-21-2015: I got (another) paycheck today, and I used it to finally fully pay off the last of my outstanding debt to Attorney Robert Berliner, for my trademark litigation. I’m now totally debt-free, though I’m going to use Berliner’s services again soon to go for some additional trademarks.
● Saturday, 10-24-2015: It’s been quite a week: I had a positive meeting with David Berns; I paid off my debt to Attorney Berliner; one of the attorneys who hires me to handle depositions gave me a raise from $50 an hour to $60; and the horrible next-door neighbors in apartment 3 are moving out. (Of course, the good meeting with David was the most important event by far.)
● Sunday, 10-25-2015: I just woke from a dream. In it I was trying desperately to find a place to study for a law test, and I had only a few hours left to study. I was at, outside, the home of Robin Bloom, a girl I was infatuated with when I was about nine or ten years old. She was with many other people; they were in the midst of some crisis; and I gave them some simple advice that seemed to help them considerably. I said, “Do what’s right in the situation.” Which now sounds banal, but which in the dream seemed profound. I left to continue searching for a place to study. I finally got to a busy mall. I had an angry encounter with a man, and I apologized more than I wanted to and more than I thought I needed to, just to be rid of him, because I was in such a hurry to resume studying. Then I woke up.
● 10-26-2015: On passing wind: Why is air in the bowels?
● 11-4-2015: I exercise strategic patience: I endlessly persevere, endlessly building for the future, foregoing short-term good for the sake of my long-term well-being.
[Later note (2021): Oh, really?!]
● Sunday, 11-8-2015: Desert ride. I ate for the second time at the Crazy Otto’s restaurant in Acton. I had a cheese and sausage omelet.
● Sunday, 11-15-2015: Philosophy Club. Topic: “explanation, or cause.”
● My response is my essay at RichardEisner.com titled “Explanation, Reason, Cause.”
● Thursday, 11-26-2015 (Thanksgiving Day): Bakersfield ride.
● Friday, 11-27-2015: Desert ride.
● The new next-door neighbor in number 3, to the east, is becoming more and more of a problem. His attacking me is becoming more and more flagrant. I’ve studiously avoided systematic retaliation up till now, but I’m afraid that I’ll have to resort to it soon.
● 12-2-2015: When someone says that Christ or God helped him, it would be more accurate to say that religion helped him: God doesn’t exist; it’s the belief in God that helps.
[Later note (2021): Perhaps it’s not even belief in God that helps; it might be just the support of other people in the religion.]
● 12-4-2015: The concept of God anthropomorphizes the universe.
● Sunday, 12-6-2015: Joyless desert ride. Blood in urine, and slight headache.
● Tuesday, 12-8-2015: Today was a good day for me. I had my annual hearing test, and my hearing was stable (it hasn’t deteriorated any further). On my way to the hospital, I stopped for coffee (at McDonald’s), and I gave a beggar the largest amount of money I’ve ever given for that: a five-dollar bill. I thought: it makes hardly any difference to me, but it’s a big piece of money for him . . ..
● Thursday, 12-10-2015: Evening. I have a cold, starting, now, with an acute sore throat.
● It’s Friday evening, 12-11-2015, five o’clock. I’m sick. I had a hamburger at Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant this morning. I’ve eaten nothing since, but I now have no appetite at all. The symptoms are evolving. The sore throat is mostly gone, but a slight cough is starting; I’m hoarse, almost voiceless; and slightly nauseated; chills; headache.
● Boopdilly, an adverb, as in “I did it very boopdilly.” Or, “He did it more boopdilly than the situation warranted.” “I do it more boopdilly than anyone else.”
● 12-12-2015: By this morning, 36 hours after the illness’ onset, I felt almost fully recovered. The only symptoms remaining were laryngitis, a slight cough, and slight runny nose.
● Sunday, 12-13-2015: Grand retaliation against the neighbors in apartment 1. The attack on me by one of the residents there had come to a head, quite overt, following me out the door, shadowing me; whenever I leave the apartment, he leaves at the same time. I had a dramatic retaliation, which I think was successful. I made the angry-noise loudly while they were entertaining guests; I believe I ruined the event for them.
[Later note (11-12-2023): Now, and for almost the entire time I’ve lived here, there’s been just the one resident in apartment no. 1. For perhaps a year, his brother lived there with him. It was the brother who was flagrantly shadowing me. The other person’s attacks on me are more subtle.]
● Philosophy Club. I didn’t go, because I’m still sick. But I’ll work tomorrow (attend the deposition); I think I’ll be well enough then for that.
● The tort law’s command to make persons whole in the face of civil wrongs committed against them should perhaps depend on the wealth of the parties involved. When a poor person accidentally causes a rich person to lose money, the poor person should not necessarily be required to pay the rich person the amount of the damage, because the wealth disparity between the two is already unjust. More specifically, the imbalance of hardships would be considerable in the poor person’s having to restore the rich person’s loss. Let’s say a poor person accidentally causes $10,000 worth of damage to a rich person’s car. The rich person makes $10,000 an hour; the poor person, $10 an hour. If he (the poor person) set aside half his wages for it, he’d have to work full time for over a year to pay for the damage; whereas, it would take the rich person merely an hour to accumulate that much money (and he might not even have to work for it, if he has passive income). So, if we must require the poor person to recompense the rich person’s loss, we might require him to work for the rich person for free for just as long as it would take the rich person to make that much money—in this case, an hour.
● 12-15-2015: Scott Warmuth’s office gave me business cards with my name on them.
[Later note (2020): One might ask, “Who else’s name would be on them?!” But one attorney (Jon M. Woods) for whom I handled depositions gave me business cards with his information on them, but my name was omitted; there was a blank space for the appearing attorney—in this instance, me—to write his name in.]
● Wednesday, 12-16-2015: I’ve been eating at Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant in Northridge, California, for about three years. Every time there, I’ve always ordered the same thing: the hamburger. Today I got something different—a waffle with sausages.
● 12-18-2015: I have no moosages in my moosebox. (That is, no messages in my “mailbox.”)
● Sunday, 12-20-2015: Truncated desert drive.
● 12-21-2015: Marriage vows I think are doomed. The couple essentially promise to always feel the same toward each other; but we have no control over our feelings. If they wake up tomorrow morning and no longer feel affection for each other, the relationship is over—or at least the honeymoon is over; and there’s precious little they can do to change it.
● I’m a blail-trazer.
● Thursday, 12-24-2015: Bakersfield ride. I ate at Mimi’s Café for the first time.
● 12-25-2015: Sometimes, the most beautiful parts of a work are ugly, problematic spots that you fixed.
● Saturday, 12-26-2015: My last day of work (handling depositions) was Tuesday, 12-22-2015. I have no work until 4 January 2016, almost two straight weeks. I regret having so much time off, both for the loss of pay (I’m an independent contractor, and so I get paid just for my actual work time), and for having nothing to keep me occupied. I’m alone at home surrounded by hostile neighbors. I was planning to take one of my frequent drives, probably to the desert, tomorrow. But the check-engine light came on in the car, precluding a long drive. So I’ll have to stay at home tomorrow (my mechanics are closed till Monday). This evening a bleak, depressed feeling came over me. I think that’s what I go for long drives to escape. For some time, those drives, once very joyous, have become routine and boring, joyless. But at least they get me out of the apartment, an even more depressing place.
● No being is infinitely intelligent. Intelligence is necessarily finite. And so an omniscient being is impossible.
● Thursday, 12-31-2015: Just today I finished a piece on the Repugnant Conclusion. It’s the third new piece I’ve finished in the last few months (the others were on moral character, and on explanation, reason, cause). A good way to finish the year! (Of course, if it had happened in the first two months of 2016, I’d have exclaimed that it was a good way to start the year.)