Feeling rather bleak just now; can't really place why. Musing about social
insects, their random behavior and their constructions within which
they live, one can't help but look at people and draw some parallels.
There's so many people, so many people... all with intricate, unique
lives. And so many people who once were, and are now no more... the
blue, god-like Dr. Manhattan of the Watchmen characterized each
individual's uniqueness as a 'thermodynamic miracle'.
"But the world is so full of people,
so crowded that they become commonplace and we
forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world
and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another vantage
point, as if new, it may still take the
breath away." <1>
That's what makes us different from termites, ants or bees.
So not all is desolation - my sore throat pain seems to have abated. Had a tasty dinner (grilled
mackerel and sushi), this time at Satsuma, which I'm thinking is just as good as Tokyo Sushi at half
the distance. Better food and not too much, like that place in Los Altos.
Perhaps these bleak feelings are a result of the job, where
must of my weekend work was rendered moot by a few snap decisions
made by higher-ups. Certainly not the first time that's happened;
I guess some suffer that indignity on a daily basis, but it does
make one wonder "Why bother?" Another factor may be the Churchill
I'm reading - war's been staved off for many years, but his
narrative has reached September 1939, where the hostilities have
finally involved the British. My own nation's present-day sabre-rattling
towards Iraq seem to have been neutralized for the moment; an agreement
was signed today in Baghdad; yet in 1938 England also believed
in an agreement that had been signed by the German dictator. Sir Winston
called WWII "The Unnecessary War", his theme for this volume (the first of
a six-part series) is "How the English-speaking peoples through their
unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to
rearm." <2> This seems
relevant to our own situation, given the seemingly careless way George
Bush called off Desert Storm without truly neutralizing the aggressor.
Why is the after-effect of my healthy veggie lunch
a couple hours of the farts?