An email

Terri (miss you!) sent me an email with a quote from Plato, in which he stated that no human matter was of any importance. This was my response (in the post-script of an email, while I was bored at work toward the end of my co-op). I think it came out in the form of a blog post, and I was just thinking about it, so here it shall lie until the end of CERN.

PS, welcome to the Arena of Nothinglefttodo, with your host, David Bensley! We are now presenting: The Longest Post-Script of All Time! Enjoy the show!

To take what he said in the literal sense, I disagree with Plato. If nothing human is of any importance, then what is important? Perhaps you think humans are no more important than other animals; I would agree. But it’s a perverse sort of melodramatic anthropocentrism to say that animal suffering/happiness is more important than human suffering/happiness, so I’ll consider them to be one in the same here.

In that way, he is implying that no matter of living beings is important. It’s hard to say that anything is important, then, because the Earth’s natural events’ only inherent significance is born of their effects on the creatures that inhabit it. Would you consider it “important” if a giant meteor pummeled the earth, causing a global temperature rise followed by an ice age, if there were no living beings affected by it? Would it be “important” if a giant tsunami swelled up and decimated nothing? I’d hardly say it would.

The meteor was important because it wiped out the dinosaurs (most of them, anyway, including all of the large ones), permanently reduced the amount of oxygen in the air, and completely changed the flora and fauna of the earth. The tsunami of 2004 was important because of the pain and suffering it caused for hundreds of thousands of people in Asia and the rest of the world, as well as the animals that lived in the affected areas. These are natural events, not exclusively human matters, but their significance is born of the effects on those whom Plato calls insignificant.

Importance is relative; I don’t think there’s a question about that. Certainly, winning the Stanley Cup is not a matter of utmost importance (just ask Alex Ovechkin). But detonating nuclear bombs in two cities was important. Discovering antibiotics and vaccines was important. The SPCA and Red Cross are important. They have the property of affecting living, feeling organisms the world over–what’s more important than that?

To a theist, I imagine it’s elevated to a whole new level. If God created man in his own image and we are His favored creatures, how could even our most important events be unimportant? If a human action on Earth will affect a soul (or many souls) for all eternity, how is it not important?

What do you think?

(dated Dec. 13, 2010)

HEY.

I hope I see you again. You brought clarity to my life more than anyone I’ve ever met.

The things you learn…

…about your relationship with a person, when you try to define it with just a few songs, are interesting.

Another One

Narrowing down the songs was pretty hard, but here it is:

On to the Next One

Two more songs that will always make me think of someone who changed my life:

Best commercial ever

Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating, or haven’t dated at all. It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which guy or girl likes you. It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school. In fact, it’s not about your grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you or not. Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are. Life isn’t just about that. But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It’s about how you feel about yourself. It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion. It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love. Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance, and building confidence. It’s about what you say and what you mean. It’s about seeing people for who they are and not what they have. Most of all, it is about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could never have been achieved otherwise. These choices are what life is about.

NEW IDEA!

I’m going to post a song or two here every few days. The song(s) will be ones that I strongly associate with somebody who changed my life and whom I happen to think about that day.

Here’s the first one:

Enjoy.

Theism

There are a lot of quotes in Voltaire’s writings that mock religion, and some that simply mock organized religion. A lot of them are really funny and clever. This is his definition of “Theism,” from his Philosophical Dictionary. It highlights the more noble aspects of religion:

The theist is a man firmly persuaded of the existence of a Supreme Being as good as He is powerful, who has formed all beings with extension, vegetating, sentient and reflecting; who perpetuates their species, who punishes crimes without cruelty, and rewards virtuous actions with kindness.

The theist does not know how God punishes, how he protects, how he pardons, for he is not rash enough to flatter himself that he knows how God acts, but he knows that God acts and that He is just. The difficulties of the existence of Providence do not shake him in his faith, because they are merely great difficulties, and not proofs. He submits to this Providence, although he perceives but a few effects and a few signs of this Providence: and, judging of the things he does not see by the things he sees, he considers that this Providence reaches all places and all centuries.

Reconciled in this principle with the rest of the universe, he does not embrace any of the sects, all of which contradict themselves; his religion is the most ancient and the most widespread; for the simple worship of a God has preceded all the systems of the world. He speaks a language that all peoples understand, while they do not understand one another. He has brothers from Peking to Cayenne, and he counts all wise men as his brethren. He believes that religion does not consist either in the opinions of an unintelligible metaphysic, or in vain display, but in worship and justice. The doing of good, there is his service; being submissive to God, there is his doctrine. The Mahometan cries to him– “Look out if you do not make the pilgrimage to Mecca!” “Woe unto you,” says a Franciscan, “if you do not make a journey to Notre-Dame de Lorette!” He laughs at Lorette and at Mecca; but he helps the poor and defends the oppressed.

I changed a few of the words because the book I am reading has (in my opinion) a better translation than the one I found online, but you get the point.

Ghost Ridin’ Grandma

Epic.

Lindsay Lohan

Dear TIME magazine,

It has come to my attention that the front page of your web site contained a link to an article entitled ‘How Will the Lohan Ankle Bracelet Work?’ I had been under the impression that you were a respectable news organization–my mistake. The problem is, I want to go to that article and comment that I don’t care, and hope that very few other people do care. Unfortunately, I can’t make this comment without clicking on the link to the article. Ay, there’s the rub, for in that clicking of the link, I will be one more person who goes into your statistics as being interested in such idiocy. So there’s my problem: I can click the link and comment on the story, which would make your numbers people believe that I wanted to read the article; OR, I could just not click it, and you would never know that I think you’re being idiots.

Cheers.