December 16, 2023

2023.12.16
If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?
Saddam Hussein declining a glass of water during his his post-capture interview sessions... 20 years ago today.

I admit I often think of this quote when I go to get a drink of water.

Another time I blog about is when I figure something out that I've been trying to understand for a long time, in some cases my whole life. That still happens. The other day I found myself talking with a friend about love, why when someone says "I love you" it doesn't mean what it seems to. Love comes from understanding someone well enough that you know what they desire, what they ache to have, and you to try to help them get it. See all the qualifications in that. Try. Help. Them. In other words, you can love someone when you know them. And you don't give them what they want, you help them get it. You can't love someone who your whole idea of is based on a dream you have about them. That's different. Anyway, lots more to say about all this. It's a recurring topic. It might be the *only* topic. Someday they'll invent an AI that can analyze my writing and tell me if I've ever written for any other purpose than being worthy of love.

Like, my God is not an old man in the sky. It's a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all categories of human thought, including being and non-being, but that's too many words for the back of a quarter. That's Joseph Campbell. I got all the best teachers later in life. Like Barry Taylor, the road manager for AC/DC, said, "'God' is the name of the blanket we put over the mystery to give it a shape." Shouldn't I have learned that in church? Why am I learning this from Barry Taylor...the road manager for AC/DC?
Tickled by the namedrop of Joseph Campbell who I'm reading now. Probably the best "wisdom from metal reference" since Ted Lasso's Roy Kent quoted Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx: "You Gotta Date Your Wife"