Sunday, March 30, 2008
Spring is in the air
Spring is always a tough time for me. It is the time of sunshine, birdsong, and bikinis. This is Florida, this is the best time to live here, so what could possibly be wrong? The answer is one word: hormones. Hormones know no moral or ideological speed bumps. Hormones feel no need to consider ideals or discipline or hopeful aspirations for a life less ordinary.
During Spring, drives that are ordinarily smoldering start to flair and rise from their usual bed of ashes. Thoughts start drifting away from "thank Jebus I'm single" toward "Jebus, I'm lonely as Hell and horny like the Devil". A more functional person would probably go on the hunt, get laid, fall into some short-term "thing", and get "it" out of their system, but anyone who knows me knows that the odds of such a situation arising in my life are about even with those of Amy Winehouse growing a new bicuspid to replace the one conspicuously missing from what is left of her smile.
Spring, a time of "I'd like to, but I won't...fucking hell..."
On one side, a reasonably healthy body that fully understands its temporary and transient nature pounding on a door that has only been opened on the rarest of occasions. Manning the door's deadbolt from the other side is a mind that has, for all intents and purposes, given up hope for most (but not quite all) of Humanity, resigning itself to hoping for miracles even as it denies the probability of their existence. So you have a situation where the physical self, with all its chemicals, organic wiring, and hardwired reproductive programming, pleads endlessly with a nearly unyielding gatekeeper. So far, the gatekeeper has won most, if not all battles. Of course, he is helped by the fact that his only overseer is the spirit who can't be bothered with such things and tends to side with him in most matters.
So the gatekeeper holds fast, insisting that he is content to wait for a chance run-in with what amounts to a flying unicorn, while the physical is completely baffled by the concept of "now". Physical only understands here, now, and immediately. His mantra goes something like, "Take what you can get when you can get it, or risk never having it all." On the surface, such logic makes sense, but the mind believes that following through and giving in to such fearful insecurities is simultaneously pathetic and pointless. He tries to calm the physical with assurances that the Fates and Time will provide other options, but quietly, he has begun to have doubts.
When trying to come up with a solution to the stand-off, my internal dialog goes something like this:
Only a couple of months left in Spring, then it's on to Summer, when it gets too hot to care what the physical or mind have to say. Unfortunately, at my age, you never want to hurry time. It's going to be a long Spring, apparently.
Labels: life
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I love when people put those together, I can only imagine if people pasted a bunch of blurbs of me together what it what sound like.
If you start defending George W Bush's intelligence or oratory capabilities, we're going to have some serious problems! :)
I didn't say I agree with everything he's done, he has certainly had his flaws... but I also think that videos like this are childish. Most the people who create them are idiots who obviously have way too much time on their hands who would be better off putting that time to good use - like trying to make the world a better place instead of making fun of people. Point is, I watched that when it happened live, so I know exactly how it sounded. I bet if you taped yourself for a day you'd be very surprised how many times you say uhh, ehh, and umm, and then if I took that tape and repeated them over and over again, you'd probably sound pretty foolish.
Anyone with half a brain knows that President Bush is not a good public speaker, heck he has said that! Neither am I for that matter, but that doesn't make me less intelligent.
Has he made mistakes - of course, but that doesn't make him dumb. Like him or not, he has had a lot more education than you or I will ever have. So - you may dislike him, heck I would say you hate him, but if you deny he's an educated man then you're just letting your feelings towards him cloud your good judgment. I HATE, HATE, HATE Clinton, but he's still an educated man and I can't take that away from him.
So in short yes, I think he's an intelligent man, I just don't agree with everything he does.
You can come back and list every bad choice and mistake he's made, but that doesn't prove his intelligence or lack thereof, it just proves he's human and not the best President we've ever had.
I'll say this: being educated has nothing to do with intelligence. I know some very stupid, very weak people who have graduate degrees, and I know some high school graduates who exhibit an intrinsic intelligence and strength that most college graduates will ever exhibit. Intelligence is as much a function of character as it is a product of exposure to information, which is all education really is. Dubya is not an intelligent man, even if he is an educated one.
I'll say this: being educated has nothing to do with intelligence. I know some very stupid, very weak people who have graduate degrees, and I know some high school graduates who exhibit an intrinsic intelligence and strength that most college graduates will ever exhibit. Intelligence is as much a function of character as it is a product of exposure to information, which is all education really is. Dubya is not an intelligent man, even if he is an educated one.