Nothing matters. Everything is important. Nothing is important. Everything matters. Between the those perspectives—seldom together in the same place at the same time—every question can be honestly answered. Because they are so rarely paired, with neither taking precedence over the other, the wisdom inherent in their simplicity often is hidden in darkness. One illuminates the other by casting a shadow. The other responds in kind, generating a dark swirling kaleidoscope of misunderstanding between two incomplete philosophical foundations. The consequences are ubiquitous; all resulting answers are incomplete. When questions posed are invalid, their answers become rusty saw-toothed scalpels capable of inflicting pain where pain was never meant to be. Pain is the consequence of wisdom dismissed or distorted or ignored. In the absence of wisdom, there is no pain. In the absence of pain, there is no wisdom. There is no absence, though; only pain and wisdom, fraternal twins competing each against their own duality.
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Phaedra woke me very early this morning, her loud meows interrupting a dream in which people and events of the past and present existed together. She was not hungry; she simply wanted to play. I did not want to play. I fed her anyway. She stopped yowling for a while, but tried to engage with me. I rebuffed her efforts by going to my study and closing the door behind me. I ignored her subsequent pleas for more attention. I had complex, confusing, disturbing philosophical matters to which to attend. I could not attend to them while engaging with her. So, I attended to them. But the outcome of that attention is simply more confusion, more complexity, more disturbing philosophical matters on my mind. While none of my concerns really matter, they are equally unimportant. I am sitting alone in my study, pondering my self-imposed solitude; asking myself the point of this useless exercise in judgmental introspection.
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A brief article I skimmed on Facebook, ostensibly published by people with knowledge of or an interest in quantum theory, claims researchers have determined the universe is not a simulation created by a far-advanced civilization. Good to know, I suppose, but is there a reason I should care? What if all of us…all of THIS…were just ideas? Nothing physical, just concepts set in motion to allow advanced beings to observe the simulation? So, what? Well, I suppose it might be some comfort to know the horrors we witness and in which we participate are just imaginary conditions established for observation for…what purpose?For the purposes of education, entertainment, something else entirely? But if there is no simulation, the questions I have are beyond stupid, aren’t they? Yes, Virginia, there is a simulation, a simulation as real as Santa Claus and Mother Goose, an endeavor as true to reality as dinosaurs roaming planet Earth a mere one thousand years ago.
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Tomorrow afternoon; first radiotherapy appointment for the brain lesion (rescheduled from last week). Ten days of it. I was told the radiation will cause me to lose my hair. I’m contemplating whether to just shave it all off beforehand to avoid the hassle of hair-in-my-soup piece-meal baldness. I know. I’ve already written about the upcoming probable loss of my hair. Apparently, it’s still on my mind. Not a huge deal, really. I’m not crazy about the bald look on me, but it does not make me suicidal. Looking at pictures of me with no hair, though, makes me realize baldness does make me look older. Some people look younger with no hair. Not me. I look older and a bit dim-witted, I think. Like my intelligence was all in my follicles.
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One hard-boiled egg. One clementine (or whatever it is called today). One Ensure. Espresso. Water. Still voraciously hungry…or else I’ve simply whetted my appetite and need to chill for a while to let it settle.
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