Don't Think And Derive

A philosopher went into a closet for ten years to contemplate the question, What is life?
When he came out, he went into the street and met an old colleague who asked him where in heaven's name he had been all those years.
"In a closet," he replied. "I wanted to know what life really is."

"And have you found an answer?"
"Yes," he replied. "I think it can best be expressed by saying that life is like a bridge."
"That's well and good," replied the colleague, "but can you be a little more explicit? Can you tell me how life is like a bridge?"
"Oh," replied the philosopher after some thought, "maybe you're right; perhaps life is not like a bridge."

What Else?

Piece Written For An Unfinished Piece

“What do you want to be when you’re grown up?” she asked.

“I am grown up,” I said.

“But older, I mean. Where do you see yourself as an old man?”

“With you, in an easy access bungalow in a quiet residential town,” I said. “I’ll have retired with a meagre pension after having made it to the middle of a company that no longer exists. Our ungrateful kids will be long gone and you’ll be thinking they should’ve married better. We’ll be watching the Antiques Roadshow on some huge television and marvelling how the Swedish furniture we had when we were younger is still considered valueless. I’ll have time for DIY and golf but be too old to swing anything. You’ll spend time in the garden because you can’t think of anything else to do. We’ll take long romantic walks to the front door before getting tired and having to turn back. All our friends will be dead and we’ll only remember the good things about them. We’ll have pictures of our grandchildren on the mantelpiece and I’ll confuse their names especially when they visit so as to annoy them. Everything will hurt and we’ll wonder why they keep mending us. Looking back, we’ll think god, I wish I’d paid more attention.”

“You’ve thought this through,” she said, looking at me.

“Well, it’s just a vague outline, it may change.” I stared at her face. “Any bits you don’t like?”

“It doesn’t sound too bad. It sounds like we had a good run.”

Pause Café

I take a coffee break from work and head out.
In the café, I sit at a corner table and order a coffee.
The waiter brings it and sets it down.
If you believe what you are pretending, are you actually pretending?
People, under pressure from social forces, adopt false values and disown their innate freedom, and hence act inauthentically. They may pretend to themselves that they do not have the freedom to make choices but they cannot pretend to themselves that they are not themselves.
I drink my coffee and head back to work.

Who Are You?

Try Explaining That To A Doctor

'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.' 

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Revolt of the Elites

Perhaps the next revolution won't be of the masses but of the elites, and it is already happening...

“The educated man pictures a horde of submen, wanting only a day's liberty to loot his house, burn his books, and set him to work minding a machine or sweeping out a lavatory. 'Anything,' he thinks, 'any injustice, sooner than let that mob loose.' He does not see that since there is no difference between the mass of rich and poor, there is no question of setting the mob loose. The mob is in fact loose now, and -in the shape of rich men- is using its power to set up enormous treadmills of boredom, such as 'smart' hotels.” - Orwell

And as Lasch wrote about in The Revolt of the Elites, those who pay the piper call the tune, control the narrative, and simply float above and away from the masses...