"Don't Give Me Quotations..."

"...Give me what you know."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I try to find time to work, have a life, and maintain a blog, one thing has become unequivocally clear: I can't do all three.

Fortunately I wasn't too invested in having a life anyway, so I'll stick with work and the blog. It wasn't a tough choice, really. With Valentine's Day approaching, what better way to dodge the imminent self-loathing than to declare it a personal choice, not circumstance, that I spend my free time in front of a computer in a small apartment bedroom in Culver City adjacent.

But I am still adjusting, and it is late, so I will have to use a few words that belong to someone else to fill my posting for the time being.

Something I wanted to mention recently is an article I read that mentioned some anniversary of Ayn Rand or her works or her philosophy.

Now, Objectivism is an interesting thing. I had applied it generously in my past to rationalize why it was okay to date shallow girls. Girls that only cared about cars and purses and whatever only affected their lives, I reasoned, were not paper-thin. Rather, they were levels above the quotidian philosophies of the common man. These girls were Objectivists, I felt. They staunchly believed in, as Ayn Rand described it, "...the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life."

Senses and sensation were paramount. It was the height of all reason.

Then, of course, these girls started to bother me.

But on the anniversary of whatever Rand, I remembered some words a good friend had forwarded on to me from a professor or someone at the University of Maryland, and I liked it and I thought to share it.

“Somewhere Aldous Huxley says that if we human beings were truly sensitive creatures, we would not know the meaning of happiness. At any and every moment someone is being tortured--by his fellowman, by her cancer, by their internal demons. If we were aware of and truly sensitive to all this suffering, we could never enjoy anything. We probably could not go on living. I suspect sometimes that one of the most fundamental goals in life has to be to try to find a balance between caring and staying sane. If we become so calloused that we don't notice the pain of others, are we really human anymore? But if we become so torn by the pain inthe world that we cannot function, we go mad. Finding a balance is very difficult. But it is essential if we are to continue as human beings. If this makes any sense to you, good luck in figuring out for yourself the ways you can help, the pain you can afford to respond to, and the things you have to let pass lest you lose your ability to remain sane and human. I think there are no tidy rules in this area: much of civilization tells us we need to care and help if we are to survive as a species, but the precise balance is left wonderfully and dauntingly up to each of us. But then that's just another part of the grand and terrible effect of human freedom."

Although I didn't write this article, I did take the liberty of heavily editing out parts I didn't think helped the piece, and I will take credit for that. But either case, I went to UM for two years and I want to give props to the author, whoever he is.

Yes, I said "he."

Fear the Turtle, please.