Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
When you meet with opposition, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
I capital-h hate killing things. I hate killing small things, hate killing big things, hate killing things that are nuisances. I can sometimes make exceptions for flies and mosquitoes, but not always. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” is the only refrain I can come up with if I have to get rid of a spider from our bedroom. And right there, I wrote ‘get rid of’, preferring the euphemism to the reality—I killed a little piece of life that never did anything to me.
I hate to see old buildings torn down. I’m always straightening piles, tightening screws, touching up, wiping off, oiling, polishing. I physically react when I see clear-cutting of the rainforest, the enduring tree chopped down for transient finances. Most boys run around pulling up grass, breaking walls, throwing rocks at windows. I was always looking to build and maintain.
Years ago in my immunology class, I was the only one in my group who was able to wrangle our lab mice. I had to take a lancet and pierce the mice at the neck, so we could take blood samples for antibody measurements. Their scapulas felt like the fine edge of a guitar pick, and they squeaked when pricked. It wasn’t a nervousness that I felt, like when your stomach clenches before a big speech — this was different, like a deep, clawing, despair. Puncturing their skin, feeling the membrane stretch before the desmosomes gave way, made me feel atrocious. The pointlessness of our ersatz research (simply to confirm what the textbooks already told us) made it even more awful. If such a thing was a means to an end, if mice were being poked and injected for a greater good in medicine, I would understand. After all, the mice went about their business and kept living after we got blood samples. At the end of the semester, it was time for them to be killed with gas—I made someone else do it. I left the classroom and looked out the window at an early spring day, trying not to imagine what it’s like to die.
The other day I saw a video that was mostly lovely — a man had taken a GoPro high definition video camera on a sport tuna fishing trip. He modified it to work underwater, and captured breathtaking video of a pod of dolphins swimming with the boat. But there’s a few seconds at the beginning of the video, before the underwater shots begin. The men are standing on the boat, one steering, others watching their lines, and one gets annoyed because a tuna is flopping around on the deck. Now, keep in mind this is a pretty big fish, so flopping around really can create a commotion. The guy grabs a heavy, blunt, bat-like thing, and casually beats the fish into a bloody pulp. I don’t know, maybe I’m overly sensitive, but I just really really did not like seeing that. I don’t even like writing about it right now; it doesn’t feel cathartic at all to revisit how I felt.
I think it’s that I love to see things working like they’re supposed to. A crown fits on a tooth, a stove heats a pan evenly, a tree puts down roots and gives shade, an animal twitches or swims or pounces or sprints. I love to see things working, and I have a hard time when I feel like I’m undoing that.
For our third wedding anniversary, I surprised Mykala with something she always wanted to do: learn how to work with molten glass. The look on her face as we pulled in to the Foci Center for Glass Arts was priceless! A few hours flew by as we learned how to pick up glass and try to work with it. We made paperweights.
I think we’ll be back for more—it was utterly fascinating.
I’m not always a huge fan of Frank Gehry, but he sure knocked it out of the… park, when he designed the Jay Pritzker Pavillion. Mykala’s sitting on the “great lawn” that stretches out from the very high-tech bandshell. We listened to a wonderfully-performed free classical concert, put on during the Memorial Day weekend. The music was atrocious (too much modern dissonance). The night was beautiful. So was Mykala.
The view at the beginning of the magnificent Chicago Lines Architectural Tour. The nice bluish glass spire at the middle is the Adrian Smith-designed Trump Tower at center. I think it’s a great building, and the tour guide during our cruise seemed to agree.
